Advent of a Miracle

I love Christmas time, the time when we think about the fact that Christ left His throne, willingly, and lived in the flesh for 33 years.

I don’t think we realize what exactly that means, the High Holy Guy had a great sermon last Christmas Eve about what Christ went through on a daily basis in order to live amongst us.

Picture yourself living in your house, your house with no plumbing leaks, no drafts, a perfectly working furnace, all the water you need (cold AND hot). Picture yourself in that house with your family, with kids who never bicker, a spouse you always cherish, love and honor, and a vehicle that always works.

Got it?

No picture yourself leaving that idyllic circumstance and living in the Superdome during hurricane Katrina for the next 33 years. No running water, death surrounds you, murders, rapes, robberies occurring frequently, no real hope for the future, raw sewage floating around you, babies crying until they die of dehydration, no food, nothing….

For thirty-three years.

And that isn’t even close to what Jesus went through living in this sinful, evil world. I have a manger scene, it looks so cute, the shepherds with their sheep, the wisemen kneeling, and angel hovering, and Mary and Joseph sitting next to a wooden box with hay (probably dirty) in it, in which lays our Lord. Not such a beautiful scene, except for the fact that the salvation of the world was at hand. Our Lord left His glory and came to save us rotten, evil, degenerate, ungrateful sinners, who would later cancel church on the day we celebrate His birth.

I feel Christ’s love more easily at Christmas time, maybe because it is easier to remember that all the garbage I have to deal with on a daily basis, He dealt with worst, voluntarily, for me.

If everyone was perfect except for me, He still would have come and suffered, just for me. How wonderful! How awesome!

I actually cried as I wrote that, because His overwhelming love for a schmuck like me is almost too much to bear. I also thought about the ways that I repay that love, by turning my back on Him, by fighting against His will, by sinning, time and time and time again, yet for some reason, known only to Him, He stills loves me.

The true meaning of Christmas is that Christ expressed His unending love for us by living in our filth, by loving our wretched selves, by taking God’s wrath on Himself for us, by dying a criminal's death on a device of torture, by going to Hell for us. That beats any Xbox game under any tree.

Fritz