the end of christmas day - Hannah Acheson Photography

It’s about 4:15, Christmas afternoon. Since we live so far north, the sky is already darkening, the temperature dropping. Over the crisp snow, it’s quiet and frigid – quite a comparison to what’s going on inside! My family is sitting around the warm living room, mostly together for the first time since summer. The light from our Christmas tree brightens the room, multicolored and sparkling. I love this time of year – the way the lights shine and the way we all migrate home for memories, both re-lived and re-created.

What is it about this time of year that brings everyone home? That makes the days surrounding Christmas so different from the rest of the year? It’s not really something tangible… it’s more like an abstract idea. It’s the celebration of God embodying love and becoming a man. Grace becoming a reality. Yesterday, after everyone had gone to bed and I was laying looking out the window at a starless, foggy night, I wrote these words. It’s not much, but they’re some pre-Christmas thoughts of mine, and maybe they’re yours, too.

You came to me. When I was unsuspecting. You came to me when I was undeserving. I knew neither Who You were nor what I needed from You – certainly not what You could and would do for me.

Not only did you come, but you came in a miraculous way, a way no one could doubt you were the Son of The Most High. Born of a virgin – an impossibility to man’s mind. Inconceivable to think that you took on the form of a baby to enter our human realm and save the very souls you literally forged from the dust of the ground.

But You did. Willingly, you accepted all the limitations you know we have as human, and you subjected yourself to becoming one of us… all for the chance to live, love, and teach; and then die on the cross. To save us from what we would become – a race cursed to a godless future. You came to make forgiveness a tangible reality, to make love a living, breathing verb. At your advent, you borough hope to a dying world. And you continue to renew that hope in Yourself, that love in Your new-every-morning mercies, that forgiveness in Your matchless grace.

The promised Child was born; yet no one knew Him, save a few. The promised Messiah walked this earth – no one saw His true God-character, except a handful of men. The promised Lamb died… but oh-so-few tell of what He did that day. So where does this leave me? When Christmas comes around, what do I celebrate? His gifts… coming home… a chance to relax, the wonderful traditions, the lights, the music? Or do I celebrate the living, breathing reality of King in baby form? Do I wonder, do I marvel at the miracle worked in Bethlehem that night? He became flesh for those of us who knew nothing about Him. How much he gave up!

Grace on earth. Love, breathing it’s first human breath. Christ as a child. Mankind about to receive something with dimensions so big it would shatter the world as they knew it… because it was literally the world’s Creator Himself. God in the flesh. For us.

FOR ME.

I want to keep that wonder, and never let it go. I want to always be blown away by the fact that God made Himself vulnerable and weak… not just child-like but an actual human child. And that He did it all with me in mind.
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“the Lord has made known his salvation;
he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
all the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.”
>>> Psalm 98:2+4
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And that’s the end of that. 🙂
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So no matter how you celebrate Christmas, don’t lose that joy. It’s the greatest gift ever given, and I’m sure you’ve heard that before. But don’t just pass it off as a holiday cliche – God gave His Son. All we have to do? Receive Him. And never stop thanking.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!
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