Slideshow image

   December is always a busy month.  Our calendars quickly fill up, our houses get decorated, and we spend too long looking for those ornament hooks.  Christmas brings parties and get-togethers with friends and family.  It’s all part of the season, and most of us enjoy it.  However, somewhere in the middle of decorating, shopping and traveling, it can be easy to forget the simple truth of Christmas.
   Within the Gospel of Matthew account of a child being born in the Ancient Near East,  there’s a declaration that this child, Jesus, will be “Emmanuel, God with us.”  For Christians, Christmas is a declaration of something astonishing; the God who hung the stars chose to be found in a manger.  Close enough to touch. He chose to exist in our messy world, rather than live above it or beyond it.
   God is not waiting on perfect families, perfect faiths, perfect situations, or a perfect Christmas.  He regularly eats with known sinners and Pharisees. I believe that Jesus lived the expression, “I love everybody and you are next.”  Christmas means that God is not waiting for us to get our lives fixed before He comes to us.  Jesus, who was born in a manger, does not even wait for ideal conditions. Jesus came to our world because you matter. Maybe you need some encouragement this season.  Some people will have full tables with loud laughter, and others' hearts will ache as they miss someone.
   Maybe this Christmas has turned out differently than you had hoped.  Holidays often breathe new life into old grief.  No matter what you are carrying this season know that you are not alone, abandoned, forgotten, but God is with you.