People who were brought up in the church are often surprised when you indicate that God will probably upset their apple cart. Encounters with the real God (not the one of our own construction) is always a God who will disturb us.
The function of any religious faith, of prayer, is not to make us comfy and secure. It is not the function of God to give us the good life. God has a very different agenda from the thoughts of so many of our fellow Canadians.
As we come to celebrate Christmas we want to get in touch with the plan of God. At this time of the year when the afternoon sun is so very low, I remember having a cup of coffee at about three o’clock and looking up at the kitchen window which had the sun streaming through the glass for these two weeks of the year. The rest of the year the sun was higher up in the sky. But at three o’clock it streamed through the window and I could see so clearly: “My, that window is very dirty.” The bright sunshine named every speck of dirt chinning to the glass!
The light shone out the darkness!
Do not sugar coat any part of the Christmas story. What was God doing?
God chose a young woman, Mary, to be the instrument of the salvation that God planned for the world. God did not choose a well-educated, rich person of prestige. He chose Mary; without power and significance. She was poor and unknown.
We need to free our minds of the royal blue that we depict Mary in so many of our drawings. Rather, she should be dressed in the dull, brown working clothes of the peasants of the day. Mary was an ordinary, unknown woman (without power). She stands for every human being. Even though all societies are structured according to the rich/poor, the educated/uneducated, the strong/ weak, the choice of Mary is God’s new standard.
The poor, the little ones, the people who get pushed to the margins are significant. How societies structure themselves is turned upside down. The people you think important, are not! Your system of human valuation is rejected. God measures by a new way: all count. No one is cast aside as worthless.
There is nothing sweet and sentimental about the birth of Jesus. He is born in an over-flow area of the local inn. This could only happen to poor and migrant people. Try to imagine how difficult the birth would have been. Who could guarantee security? Was there a mid-wife, a helper?
Be awed this Christmas by the decisions and working of God. The Spirit of God has not come to make you feel wonderful but to lead us into God’s great world where every human being is valued. How God operates upsets us.
There is a new way to live. God wants to expand the hearts of every human being to live and love like God lives and loves. Religion is not about making you feel good. It is all about us getting involved in God’s way of doing things. Your plans will be upset but there is a much greater plan being revealed this Christmas.
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