We will gather around our table and enjoy a feast of Christmas beast and all the accompanying dishes. There will be 12 of us. I am really looking forward to that moment when we all sit and see one another. This year my niece and her family will join us. It will be grand.
It is around the table where it all starts as we celebrate this incredible season of birth. The birth of the baby who would grow up, become a roaming rabbi teaching, healing, crying, laughing, living with his followers. Then He will hand himself over to die a sacrificial death for all of us.
Some who gather around tables will not understand what this season truly is about. It may be viewed simply as a time to exchange presents, enjoy the company of family and friends. It may be viewed as a season of religious duty, an annual attendance at a nearby church. It may be viewed with some skeptic's eye not sure anymore if all of this is true. Childhood faith has been set aside as one considers again the veracity of this One who came to be with us and, who said He would never leave us alone as orphans again.
My plan was to read something I found written by one of my favorite authors, but it was a bit on the long side and I knew I will only have a few moments to capture those gathered about my table for this small gift of words.
He came to live as fully man and fully God to lead us into a Kingdom that only requires faith. A kingdom where we can be fully known; all our noble thoughts and actions along side our frailties, fears and our dismal failures. Fully known is just the beginning though, and can seem so heavy without the second part of His coming, this God/man who offers redemption, even if we don't believe we need it or deserve it.
He came not to just offer a deep knowing but to offer a deep love, a love that will never take the tiniest step back from us when we have failed as often and as miserably as we so often do. There is such a relief in that kind of Holiness.
We think of Holiness as being so...... Holy, set apart, above us and unattainable. And yet, that is not His Holiness that is offered. It is a Holiness that relieves us of the demands of perfection or even trying to get it right. Sure, we want to at least try and show we are worth the attention of love lavished on us, but we need not strive so hard to be something we are incapable of being.
His Holiness asks us to simply rest with Him, alongside in cooperative longing, a longing for that day when we are finally home with Him.
In the meantime, until we get home, we can celebrate, we can enjoy, we can simply be with Him, through faith. Sit around the table and imagine being there in that smelly stable and adore the One who has come to make us new.
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