Good News

We feel like failures because we're probably going to miss Christmas again this year. No matter how hard we try to hold onto the hope that is this season, no matter how much we want to go forward in our lives with something new inside our spirits, the truth is that most of us won't. Monday's a'-comin', and we will go back to the grind and find it - and ourselves - just the way we left it. 

But there's still good news...

And that good news is the Good News. 

The Good News that God is with us. That no matter what else is happening, He has come to dwell among us. That He walks with us. That He bridged the gap and came to join us even on our Mondays. That even if it takes us the rest of a lifetime to ever fully hold onto the hope the way that we want to (and for some of us, even a lifetime won't be long enough), that hope is still right here. 

In the flesh. In a manger. In a silent night (ha!). In the dust and the dirt and the grime and the brokenness and the hurt and the heartache of our fallen world and all of our Mondays. 

Remember, almost no one noticed the baby in the manger. Almost no one. A few shepherds heard from some angels and came in from the fields for a moment. There were a couple of older persons who had spent their lives in the Temple praying for this very moment who just happened to be there when Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus at eight days old, and they recognized Him.  

But the Bible doesn't even tell us that the priest who circumcised and dedicated the baby Jesus recognized anything special about Him. There was no proclamation that this was the One. This was Mary and Joseph's boy, born out of wedlock, bearing the shame of sin. It was cute that they were trying to be all faithful now, but where was that kind of faithfulness nine months ago when they should have been waiting for marriage before getting themselves into something like this? 

A couple of shepherds, Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Anna, and Simeon. That's it. The rest of the world had no idea what just happened to them. 

Until twelve years later, when He declared in the holy assembly that He was the one the prophet Isaiah was talking about. 

Until He turned water into wine. 

Until He healed the blind, gave sound to the deaf, cast out demons, made the lame walk, put the religious authorities in their place, challenged the status-quo. 

Until He hung on the Cross. 

Until darkness fell. 

Until the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty. 

That first Christmas - it wasn't 0 A.D. That's not when the whole world changed. At least, that's not when the whole world knew that it changed. It wasn't until more than thirty years later that the world truly figured out what happened. Then, all of a sudden...what good news! 

So if you're missing Christmas this year, that's okay. Almost everyone missed it two thousand years ago. 

Yet the baby in the manger still changes everything for everyone. The good news is still good, even if it takes what seems like a long time to really get it, to really grasp it, to really, finally, hold onto this hope. 

Merry Christmas. The whole world has changed. 

Whether it feels like that today or not.