🙌It's the Friday Call to Worship!🙌
The most anticipated day of the year has come and gone, leaving precious memories, overflowing garbage bins, and my kids asking how many days until next Christmas. Is there a such thing as a "wonder hangover" after the Christmas magic has peaked?
Just imagine the morning after the very first Christmas. An incredibly sore, new mom picks up the King of Kings in soiled swaddling cloth. She's far from her family and the comforts of her own home. No one can hear the angels singing anymore, and two teenagers bear the weight of a holy calling in an earthly mess.
To add some context to what the carols portray as a silent, joyful and bright Christmas... God's people had been waiting 600 years since Isaiah prophesied Jesus' birth. (Read Isaiah 7:14, 9:6-7.) They were desperate for a strong warrior to swoop down and save them. Instead, the quiet coming of the Messiah brought catastrophe to countless other families. King Herod decreed the death of all baby boys born near Bethlehem. Jesus' young parents fled to Egypt in the middle of the night to save their baby so he could save the world. (Read Matthew 2:13-21.) The cost was unfathomably high and probably not what either of them had dreamt for their lives.
We are all invited to let go of the lives we dreamt of to find true life in Jesus. (Matthew 16:25) It's a narrow path, a good path, but it's certainly not without cost or pain. (Matthew 7:13-14) The tension of bearing heaven and earth in our bodies is confounding. The quiet peace of God cannot be heard in the cadence of the world's ways.
But that's what yesterday was all about. The King of Glory quietly entered the noisy world with us in the most humble, undignified way. He bore tension, strife, sorrow, temptation and more in His body because He knew we would too. He came to give us an option to replace the clamor of a broken world with heavenly hope.
The beauty of the days that follow Christmas is that Jesus remains. He came in that manger, and He promised to never leave us. He is worthy of our worship.
Listen to "If I Got Jesus" by Ben Fuller.