A human Christmas

In this episode, I reflect on the essence of Christmas, particularly from an Australian perspective, contrasting it with the snowy imagery often associated with places like Toronto. I share a personal anecdote about a friend’s snowy Christmas in Toronto, highlighting how Hollywood shapes our perceptions of this season. I emphasize that the true significance of Christmas lies in God becoming part of our lives through Jesus. By reflecting on Mary and Jesus’ humanity, I encourage listeners to embrace God’s transformative love and grace, fostering a deeper, personal relationship with Jesus during this sacred time.

00:00:00 So Christmas in Australia, as we go from heat waves to storms to cool the changes and all those different experiences. I got a message this morning from a dear friend who was living in Australia, but has now moved back to Toronto. Well, just outside of Toronto and anyone that’s been to Toronto in winter, you realize it’s a pretty cold and desolate sort of place. And that experience of, you know, the snowbound, snowbound landscape, you know, comes to mind, certainly, when I kind of think of Christmas, even though it’s never been well, I have had a couple of white Christmases in spending Christmases in Europe, but it’s not quite the same as our experiences here. But the problem is that we can tend to kind of think of the world like we think of Christmas. It’s just full of of images, full of concepts made up from Hollywood movies and, and other kinds of influences that have very little to do with our actual lived experience. and the drama of Christmas is that God becomes part of our life.

00:01:12 God wants us to experience him in our lived reality, in what is actually happening here and now. Not in some fantasy and in some fairy tale, but in that gift of that life breaking into our world, opening to us, this incredible gift and this grace of being changed. Because one of the wonderful things when you read the first three quarters of our Bible, the Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures, you know, God was present there. God had revealed God’s self in in so many different ways, whether that’s through the writings, the instruction of the prophets, whether that’s through the great patriarchs, the great figures who had experienced God in in lots of different ways, whether that was through an angel that kind of appeared to them, the burning bush, the sound of the voice of God rolling around in the thunder on Mount Sinai. All the different ways that God made God’s self available to us. And yet it was never as amazing. And it’s wonderful as what happened on that first Christmas night. You know, when Mary carried that child in her womb.

00:02:35 I doubt if she really understood exactly what was unfolding. She had lots of experiences. Again, another angel to kind of come to her. And and then when she went to to visit her cousin Elizabeth, she was also bearing the son. In her case of John and John, you know, rejoiced at the very presence of of Mary and Jesus coming to them. But Mary had no idea what it actually would mean for all of us as we gather today. The transformation that happened when God said, I will not just confine myself to these moments of revelation. It won’t just be significant figures who are able to encounter the wonder in the mystery of God, but I will reveal myself in such a way, in such vulnerability and such incredible love, that anybody is able to now experience God, that we’re able to encounter the very presence of God. Not in a fairy tale, noting some story, not in some scene from our imagination, but in the lived reality of a friendship with Jesus. The Jesus became human so that as the opening prayer said, we can become divine.

00:03:59 The we can slowly be changed and transformed by that life of Jesus. And the fact that Jesus was human reminds us that whatever we experience, he has already been through. When we’re feeling tired and grumpy, when we’re just feeling a little bit overwhelmed or we’re hungry or thirsty. We’re feeling hot and bothered. Whatever those experiences, Jesus has felt them before us. He’s experienced that and encountered that and invites us into that experience so that we know that we’re we’re no longer alone. We’re not just going through this as solo entities within this created universe, this amazing, wonderful, beautiful universe that we are part of. But this gift, this reminder that he’s done that and he’s been there before us, as we’re reminded also that it’s not because of anything that we did that God chose to become human. It wasn’t because he looked at us and went, oh my goodness, look how incredible this people have have changed and transform themselves. Look how faithfully they keep my covenant commandments. Look how amazingly they begin to bear witness to my word within the world.

00:05:20 Know the Jewish people didn’t do that, and the Christian people have not done that either. But Jesus was born for us simply by this act of grace, the sheer manifest love of God just pouring God’s self out upon us, longing the some of us at least might understand this, that we might experience that personal encounter with his love. As a Christmas is all about this transformation that happens, this openness to goodness, this grace, this love that he’s wanting to show to us. So today, let’s indeed just take a moment to really allow that love and that goodness to embrace us, to allow that love to be available for us so that we can experience him so that we can become a better friend of the Lord through this encounter and through this grace and through this goodness, let’s indeed let Jesus do his work among us so that we can be changed and we can be transformed, and we can finally be his people here on earth, doing his work, bearing witness to him, and speaking and serving in love in his name.