Happy Christmas from Nashville! Yes! It’s still Christmas and for that, I am truly thankful.
This December has flown by and thanks to travel and family celebrations out of town, I haven’t celebrated the season the way I had hoped. There hasn’t been enough time for just being present. For just sitting and reading and looking at the Christmas tree and enjoying the lights. So I am fully embracing the 12 days of Christmas and keeping the celebration going. I plan to keep watching holiday movies and listening to Christmas music at least through Epiphany, January 6th.
Today began with an intense rain storm, so I turned on all the Christmas lights and lit the candles and and made coffee and jumped into my Advent reading. Yep, I didn’t get very far in the daily readings, so I am using these days after the 25th to do a bit of catch up and reflection. Reminding myself that it’s still Christmas despite the man I saw yesterday taking his tree to the curb!
I am fully embracing the Church Year and I want you to give yourself permission to do the same! Enjoy the whole SEASON OF CHRISTMAS ….and this is day 3!
What would you like to do to keep the celebration going? What things help you celebrate the season and remember the Birth of Jesus rather than jumping back into busyness and business as usual?
Have you noticed that we tend to grow Jesus up really fast in the lectionary readings? This weekend, Jesus is getting in trouble with his parents for being in the temple while they had headed home after the Passover feast. Jesus at age 12!
But in reality, Jesus is still in the manger! Mary is learning to be a mom and no one is getting much sleep! I doubt that Mary and Joseph have found better lodgings just yet, or that Mary felt much like moving very far.The shepherds might have found them some friends to stay with…or if the couple were in the lower part of a family’s home, the barn portion of the dwelling,…they might have been invited upstairs to be more included. But still, Jesus is a new born, nursing around the clock, needing his diapers changed and there isn’t a Target or Tesco in site!
If you are a parent, what do you remember about those first few days of having a baby?
I have some friends who just had a baby this month and they are learning together how to be parents. They are totally excited and totally exhausted! I got to hold this beautiful little boy and enjoy that new baby smell and be reminded of the wonder of birth. The fact that anyone gets born is a true miracle. I remember when I was pregnant, thinking about the miracle of hatching a person, not a puppy! A person who would be uniquely themselves formed inside me but definitely not in my control. I imagine Mary and Joseph just sitting in awe and wonder at this beautiful miracle boy. They had time to process the visit of the shepherds and all they told them about the angelic host. They probably recounted the other angelic visits and planned how they would go to Jerusalem to name him officially Jesus!
Why is it hard for us to let Jesus be a baby? Why do we race ahead and grow him up?
Take some time today to imagine the story of the days after the birth of Jesus. Consider Mary and Joseph. How have they changed? How are they the same?
What about the shepherds? What do you imagine they did after seeing the baby?
How are you changed by the birth of this baby?
The Incarnation means that Jesus came as one of us. God sent Jesus into our REAL LIFE! The mess, the beauty, the clutter, the pain the pleasure, the frustration, and even into the suffering. God loves us so much that God sent a baby to show us who God is ! This means that our earthly life is honored. Our earthly life is beautiful to God. Our earthly lives are a wonderful miracle and Jesus came to show us how to have this life in abundance !
baby lotion
PRACTICE:
If you are out and about this week, buy a bottle of baby lotion. The kind that smells. Use this as a physical reminder of the birth of Jesus. Put some on and let the smell of it enfold you into the wonder of Jesus with us! Take a walk down the baby aisle at a local store…think about all the things a newborn needs. All the things that new parents deal with and ponder Mary and Joseph as new parents. Pray for parents that you know. Pray for people who want to be parents. Ask Jesus to show you the wonder of GOD WITH US this week.
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10
Thank you Jesus for coming to us as a baby.
Thank you for reminding us that our humanity matters.
Thank you for the wonder of God with us.
Thank you for reminding us of The beauty of birth, the messiness of birthing and the pain of parenting.
You are with us in all of it. You are with us in the mess.
Help us to know your love deeply this holiday season.
Wrap us in your love just as Mary wrapped you in swaddling clothes.
We love you Jesus. AMEN
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
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ART: Madonna of the Meadow by Giovanni Bellini