The Real Christmas Story
I am sitting at my computer typing up this blog because a storm has set in across North America. This is throwing a wrench in the weekend plans. Some didn’t finish their shopping and now risk going out in icy, windy, and blizzard-like conditions. There are some stranded at the airport and wondering if they are going to make home for Christmas. Then others are making difficult trips to and from the hospital to see those who are sick.
I am sure some are agitated right now and others are frustrated and feel like the weather is a huge inconvenience to what was supposed to be a calm, enjoyable, and exciting Christmas.
It’s been two years of Christmas plans being changed, since the COVID-19 pandemic, and now it seems like here we are once again, Christmas is being highjacked. Are we ever going to get a break?
But then I think about, perhaps we are not too far from how the first people who experienced Christmas.
For them, Christmas didn’t have a beautiful lit-up tree. It didn’t even have cookies and hot chocolate. It certainly didn’t have a beautiful table with food.
It was quiet.
It was hard.
It was inconvenient.
I am thinking of Mary, who didn’t probably feel too keen on riding on a donkey when she was months pregnant.
I am thinking of Joseph who tried to find a place to have baby Jesus, but door after door was shut on him.
But when the Light of the world entered, he did not come wearing a crown. He didn’t even have the clothes of royalty. It was just a baby in a cave, wrapped in clothes. He was surrounded by animals and shepherds of their time came to visit him.
Nothing about this story screams convenient, royal, or majestic.
But rather simple, humble, and yet profound.
Maybe that is the whole point.
Christmas is about being quiet.
It’s about reflecting.
It’s supposed to be inconvenient because in that space something spectacular happens.
That’s the real Christmas story. That the King of the world, didn’t come into our perfect spaces to improve them, rather he enters an imperfect world to save imperfect people and to stand with them in their imperfect situations.
When we think about this way, all the things that cause us to get mad or upset because Christmas is not going our way begins to fade, and the real beauty of Christmas shines.
It’s not about us, it’s about him and when we remember that it changes everything.
Christmas is not ruined because of what is going on around me, instead, it is amazing because Jesus Christ came and is present in my life. And that is the real Christmas story.
