By Kathie Hempel ––
I remember Christmas’ Eves long ago when my sons were very young. Not always fondly.
As a single Mom, with no close family of my own, it was a struggle that I always felt I lost. I wanted to be able to see the boys faces on Christmas morning. I had worked hard to be able to afford at least one thing they really wanted Santa to bring. It just wasn’t enough.
I would imagine that moment they opened the presents and saw they had gotten exactly what they wanted from the Sears Toy Catalog…but then what? What would we do with the other 15 ½ hours of the day?
Sure, I could cook a nice dinner. The four of us could sit around the kitchen table, however, I could not imagine it would feel like Christmas.
Then I would think of their Dad’s family. All the aunts and uncles and cousins, grandma and grandpa, the noise of everyone talking and singing carols and comparing gifts. I could not compete with that. And so, each year regardless of shared custody and the swapping of turns with the children during the holiday, I would pack up their little overnight bags and send them off with their presents for others and wish them the merriest of Christmas’.
Many times, I would collapse against the door after it closed behind them and sob. All I wanted to do was to crawl into bed and sleep until it was over. Just waiting for it to end. Was that all that Christmas had come to mean to me? How I wished for something different!
Today, I look back on those days quite differently. I hope my boys remember Christmas as a happy time. I believe they can, based on all the wonderful stories and laughter that came home from those Christmas’ that were spent with Dad and his family. And I smile, knowing I did the best thing I could for them at the time.
When Christmas doesn’t seem as merry as the televisions commercials tell us it should be, perhaps it is time to look back on that first Christmas Eve. There were no sparkling trees or brightly covered gifts. Just a young man and woman, looking down at a baby they had not conceived together and yet would raise as their own. They were shunned by many they knew and amazed by the remarkable happenings that followed a message from an angel. And now here he was.
He looks so…human. They wonder how exactly does one raise the human son of a Divine God. Shepherds and wise men, angels on high, murder in a King’s heart. There must have been times this very human couple wished for something different.
Yet, based on the hope of the prophets and the voice of the angel, they moved forward. It had to be backbone, not wishbone, that would allow them to complete the extraordinary mission ahead.
Luke 2:19 says: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Is it possible that the secret to our survival of the most difficult times of our lives is contained in this one short verse?
Here is a mother, who counted hope as treasure. How often did she think of all the events that led to that moment? How often did she have to remember, in wonder, the promises of the angel?
Her son was not always easy to understand. He disappeared while they were traveling, it took them three days to find the boy and when they did, he was not exactly apologetic. “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them,’ according to Luke 2: 41-52 and again “… his mother treasured all these things in her heart.”
During a wedding she asks for a favor and Jesus at first seems hesitant, she goes to visit him surrounded by crowds of strangers and He asks “who is my mother?” I would not be pleased!
Mary’s toughest time of all comes at the foot of a cross, with mockers tossing lots for her son’s clothes, watching soldiers stab him and offering him vinegar when he desperately needs water. He tells a friend to watch over her and then says, “it is finished.”
Finished? How could that be? An angel said he was going to save the world! That he was a King! She had gone through so much!
These were not, I am quite sure the dreams she had for her babe in the manger. And yet when the day of Pentecost arrives, we find Mary praying with the disciples. Her dreams did not materialize as she had wished, however, her hope obviously persevered.
Hope is what was given that first Christmas. Hope is what sustains us in the tough times, during the longest of long and lonely nights. In hope we remember that the times when the end seems nearest, there is yet the promise of new beginnings.
When the night seems too long, we need to treasure this hope in our hearts and think on these things.
Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV)
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Today’s prayer by African American soul vocalist and musician captures so much of what I long for this Christmas season. The feature image is by Cree artist Jackson Beardy from Winnipeg Mannitoba.
Aaron Neville was born January 24, 1941and died in 2019 at the age of 81. He was an American R&B and soul vocalist and musician with four platinum albums and four Top 10 hits in the United States, including three that went to #1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. His debut single, from 1966, was #1 on the Soul chart for five weeks.
By Jeannie Kendall —
Anticipation is a curious thing: and perhaps especially at Christmas. As a child, my favourite part of Christmas was Christmas Eve. I loved the colours of the presents under the tree, and the mystery of which were for who and what they might contain within. If I am ruthlessly honest about those far off days though, often the expectation outshone the reality and I enjoyed the thought of what might be rather than what actually was. My parents made us open presents one at a time each day, eking them out until well past New Year. I never minded, because it lengthened that season of hope of what I might discover hiding under the gaudy exterior.
Sometimes life is like that, with the anticipation superior to the actuality. The holiday which we eagerly await but weather or venue disappoint us. The job we hoped would stretch and develop us which turns out to be monotonously mundane. The friendship for which we hoped more but proved ultimately superficial.
There are many different ways we can respond. We can stop hoping, allowing spider threads of disillusionment to wrap themselves around our soul. Or we can continue to yearn for that moment which will surprise us by finally meeting our unspoken dreams, becoming weary by the waiting. As the Bible puts it, “Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick” (Proverbs 13:12 The Message)
Christmas, it seems to me, is the opposite. At the time of Jesus’ birth, after a 400 year silence from God, surely anticipation had either ceased altogether or become a distant promise retained only by the pious few. And those who hung on had only nationalistic expectations: a warrior Messiah who would crush the Roman oppressors and release the browbeaten Israelites.
Yet the actuality was so much greater. A rescuer not just for the Jews and that limited time, but for every nation and all history and bringing ultimate transformation for the cosmos. Love personified, humanity dignified and restored.
So as Christmas Eve melts into Christmas day, whatever the day itself holds, know that, to quote the next half of that verse from Proverbs, “when desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.”. An apt phrase, as, decades later, that tree of death would give us access to full, technicolour life.
For once, as we remember again the Word becoming flesh, the reality far exceeds every expectation.
By Jenneth Graser —
An excerpt from her devotional, Catching the Light
Read Isaiah 42:14, John 3:6, Romans 8:24-25
At certain times in our life, we become aware of the fact that God is preparing to release us into a new season. It feels as though we have come to the moment of birth. God placed a seed of this season in us a while ago; it has been growing for quite some time and now we feel he is about to bring it forth. We can imagine how Mary must have felt, keeping what she was told inside her heart, believing what was promised. The experience she had of meeting Elizabeth when they were both pregnant, released a burst of prophetic praise out of her that revealed the great anticipation she must have felt housing the King of kings in her womb. The preparation for these new seasons is like incubating the life of Jesus in us for a whole new expression and time of his coming in our lives. We become the place of growth as we wait in anticipation for all the good things he has prepared in advance for us. “That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.” (Romans 8:24-25 The Message). It is during these times that we hold onto the life-giving words of Jesus. As we meditate on his promises and inheritance, we become enlarged in the waiting and become more and more ready for the time of “birth”. And when we find ourselves launched out into new things, we continue to rely completely on him and contemplate the wonders of what he has done in our hearts. “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19).
Thank you Lord, that I am enlarged through the times of waiting for your purposes to be born through me. I will treasure the dreams and visions you give as a sign of what is to come and ponder them with you. I know when the time comes for this season to be born, that nothing can hold it back!
Ready or not, here I come
On the updraft of a dream
Joel paints the picture for you
Visions, all for men and women
Young and old, and it’s coming.
I crescendo off the embankment
Of birth readiness
A waterslide rush headlong
Into new things, new times
New seasons, everything new.
I am the woman of birth readiness
I hold the dreams of my internal child.
Surely “Christ in me” takes on a whole
New meaning; ready or not
Here I come.
I imagine the Christ child living in me
Christ the Man, the Resurrected King
All as much part of me
As I am of him.
I hold up my hands like wings,
Heaven’s basin is my resting place.
All of my prayers resonate with the sound
Of voices, forming incense, now rising
To the ears, voice, nose of the one who loves me so.
By Lilly Lewin
Last week we hosted a Sacred Space prayer experience in our home called “RECEIVE THE GIFT.” All the prayer stations were about the gifts we give and receive at Christmas.
I find I am really good at giving gifts, but I am not always great at receiving them.
Too often I want to make excuses that I don’t really need a gift, or that I already have enough, or others need things more than I do. Often I am not even aware of the gifts I need. Often I am too busy or too tired or I’m just not paying attention so I don’t actually see the gifts that God has for me.
Author CS Lewis says,” if our hands are full of too many packages, we cannot receive any new gifts.”
What Gifts do you need this Christmas?
What Gifts do you need to Receive?
Consider the gifts received by those in the story of the first Christmas.
Zechariah received the gift of silence…not being able to speak for at least nine months while he waited for his son John to be born.
His wife Elizabeth received the gift of surprise after waiting and wanting a child for so long,
And she received the an unexpected gift of the Holy Spirit when Mary came to visit
Mary. Mary received many gifts in the arrival of Jesus.
The gift of saying YES to God and allowing God to change her entire life.
The gift of Reflection. As she pondered all that happened after she birthed the baby. The gift of
Shepherds with news of Angel hosts.
Magi from far away lands bringing gifts
Prophecies from old saints in the temple at Jesus’s dedication.
Joseph had to receive the gift of interruption. And the gift of paying attention and listening …
To his dreams
To the voice of God…
Choosing to not run ahead and doing what he wanted to do, but actually listening to God’s instructions even in a dream!
The Shepherds. Ah the shepherds! just regular folks doing their regular job, minding their own business. They received the gifts of awe and wonder! As they sat by their fires on the hillside while their sheep grazed in the fields, they received the gift of GREAT NEWS from the Angel hosts that a baby was born in Bethlehem. Not just any baby, but the Savior!
The Shepherds didn’t stay out there and second guess their gift. They didn’t sit by the fire and talk about this gift.
Nope, they ran to Bethlehem in expectation! They searched for the gift wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. They truly wanted to find and receive the Gift that was, and is THE GIFT to and for the entire world…The GIFT for ALL of us. Emmanuel, God with us!
“Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.
19-20 Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told! Luke 2:15-20 The Message
So as we wrap our presents and put finishing touches on our gifts, lets consider the gifts we need this Christmas. Let’s choose to put down the packages that are cluttering our lives and weighing us down. Let’s open our hands and receive the new gifts God has for us. And let’s run to Bethlehem and truly receive the gift of God with us! And then pass that Gift along!
Merry Christmas!
freerangeworship.com The Gift Sacred Space will be available soon!
This beautiful Ave Maria by Christopher Duffley who is autistic and blind reminds me that Jesus shines through all the broken people of our world. Though not really a Christmas hymn, this wonderful song gives me hope that Jesu light can shine in the darkest places and bring the light of birth and renewal.
Here is a beautiful recording of For Unto Us a Child Is Born to reflect on as we head towards Christmas. The image above is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo : Joseph Mulamba-Mandangi, Nativity, 2001.
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