Mike Rutledge.CA

It’s Christmas time again, so every blog you will read will sound oddly familiar, because as the writer of Ecclesiastes noticed, “nothing is new under the sun.” And there’s only so much Christmas that can go around.

So, I am not going to pretend that what you are about to read is something you haven’t probably read before, but it is what I am thinking about right now as I look to Christmas and think about Jesus. The whole point of Christmas is Jesus coming to earth, God entering into our suffering, God coming closer than we realize, and this reality should really frame not only what we celebrate but the way we celebrate this season as well. So here are 4 quick thoughts.

1. Rest

At the heart of the Christmas story, the epi-center of the whole thing, is really the grace of God working to bring us salvation. And at the heart of this salvation, is rest. It is the rest of our souls, the ceasing from striving to be holy enough, good enough, to maintain status, to maintain image, and surface perfection. The good news is that we rest in Jesus to validate our existence, to define our value, to be enough, and we are resting in his great self giving love for us.

Rest is the gospel, and yet ironically, Christmas is hardly a time for rest. And so in the stress and craziness of endless Christmas dinners, parties, services, gifts, expectations, and the making of memories, we need remember to honor what Christmas is about by truly finding time to rest. We need to let our souls recoup and refresh as we celebrate the glory of the grace of God given to us. And that’s not just seen in taking some more ‘quiet time.’ Take an extra nap this holiday; the world will keep spinning when you are sleeping. Put the laptop away, turn the phones off, you don’t really need to just check Facebook again for the 1000^th time today, and those emails generally can wait. Do what refreshes your soul. Play a game with family, read an amazing book, take a bath, whatever it is, find a time to celebrate with rest.

2. Rejoice

In Luke’s telling of the Christmas story, an angel comes to the shepherds and says that he is there to proclaim a gospel of great joy. This stood out to me this year as I was again reading this story. And the truth is, if the good news that Christians claim to have isn’t full of joy, it may not be the gospel. The good news is the greatest source of joy for the human soul. So, if you are a Christian, no matter how life is situationally going – maybe not all that great, maybe really good- we have the unshakeable source of our souls joy in Jesus, in our souls being made alive in his love. And if joy isn’t in our disposition at this time of the year, we need to think more on what this time of year is. It’s a time of hope. It’s a time celebration. It’s a time of redemption. It’s a time of God showing He is good. It’s when we remember that we are not left to our own devices, that God came down to bring us joy. And so joy should overflow in us. So when we are eating, and opening gifts, and playing our games, and driving those distances, lets us do it with joy in our hearts. Let’s sing loudly the songs, let’s laugh till it hurts, let’s be filled with joy!

3. Relate

But…Christians live in a world of tension, where joy and suffering co exist in this time where we await the fullness of what Christmas means to come. And so even in our joy, there can be great pain around us. Christmas can be the time when loss become all to real. The absence of a loved one, the dissolution of a relationship, the pain of the year that was. Loneliness is emphasized as everyone else gathers with their family. Poverty and lack become all too apparent as their cart is way more full than mine is. Stress runs high, shame is sometimes all to close, and Christmas can be painful. But the point of Christmas, the incarnation of Jesus, is the story of God entering our pain, empathizing with our pain, identifying with our pain. And so we are to do the same. For those around us that mourn, we mourn to. We do our best to relate to, speak hope into, and work to bring good to, the pain around us. Whether that’s a hug, an invitation, a conversation, an act of generosity, we enter that place like Jesus did. We can’t fully have our celebrations in isolation. We celebrate in relationships with the broken and healed, the mourning and rejoicing.

4. Refine

When thinking about Christmas, we could say that it is the story of God displaying the greatest act of selflessness we could imagine. The incarnation of Jesus really is the humiliation of Jesus. The Word becoming flesh, is the Son giving up all glory and power, riches and beauty, and prominence and status, for the good of those who didn’t deserve it, for those who would reject him and ultimately kill him. But He did it, because He loved us. Our souls are in constant need of refinement, especially in the area of selfishness. It’s natural state of our hearts – me first, my wants, my needs. But the reality is that it would far better for our relationships, our workplaces, and our cities if we allowed Christmas to refine us as it should, to refine the selfishness in us as we gaze upon the greatness of Jesus’ humiliation. That God would give all that up – things we would hold on to for dear life – so that we could benefit. Him becoming poor so we could become rich, Him becoming nothing so we could gain everything. This is the grace of God, and this is the light that dispels pride and selfishness in us. To understand what Jesus has done, to grasp even a fraction of the nature of Christmas, is to have our souls refined by the fire of his love.   Instead of trying to survive the holidays with the littlest effort possible, with a ‘what’s the most convenient for me attitude’, why not ask, ‘what can I do for them?’, not what do I want, but what do they need. Marriage, Family, work, neighborhoods, these would all be just a little brighter this year, if we let Christmas refine the selfishness out of us a bit more.