Are we ready to face January and the 70 some days of winter remaining? Have we come away from Christmas and New Year with enough substance of the Spirit that will let us live with the doubts and worries and sufferings our nature is prone to?
I picked up some solid messages in the season’s turning this past year. I began the New Year with one resolution: I will tell my face the message my heart holds, that my Spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
A Christmas message struck me. Jesus came as a baby so that we could approach God and not be afraid. In His vulnerability Jesus became accessible. His gifts to us can be unpackaged as the years pass: Wisdom, Understanding, Courage, Knowledge, Fortitude and Joy, and all of the Gifts of the Spirit.
Joy is the greatest gift. It is life-sustaining and exactly what we need in our frozen winter and the frozen hearts we sometimes carry around with us. Joy gives us hope and lets us live with doubt. When we fail to remember the faith-filled Christmases of our childhood, joy reminds us.
When we feel like we are wasting our time trying to maintain a faith life, Joy brings us back as simply as a sunset unfolds or a baby smiles. God keeps on sending us daily reminders and just occasionally hits us with little epiphanies that we need to share with those we love.
The challenge of Christmas is the message Christ came to bring us: COMFORT, OH COMFORT MY PEOPLE (Isaiah 40). Speak kindly to others; tell them that their sorrows have ended, all their sins have been removed.
In Mark Lowry’s Christmas song “Mary Did You Know” we are reminded of all the joys of Christmas:
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered will soon deliver you.
Mary did you know that your baby boy will make a blind man see?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.
The blind will see, the deaf will hear and the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the mute will speak, the praises of the lamb.
Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you’re holding is the great I am.
Wow! And amen! We have another year to comfort God’s people with the Good news we have heard.
