Christ Still Comes

With spiking omicron variant numbers, a decision was made Friday morning to cancel in person Christmas Eve worship. We recorded the service that afternoon and numerous phone calls were made to those who had pre-registered to come.

To say it was disappointing is an under-statement. To be on this constant seesaw of balancing need for gathered community worship and the safety of those same people as case numbers and recommendations fluctuate is exhausting. To be back in the throes of people’s anxiety as they race to get booster shots is draining. And yet, despite our best laid plans that fell by the wayside, Jesus still came.

And Jesus still comes and continues to come into a world similar in many ways to the one into which He was born - a world of lower classes used to prop the economy and fund the projects of rich and powerful leaders, a world filled with fear and concern about survival, a world where hope is waning.

The King of kings was born unexpectedly humbly and His life was always at risk. After the Wise Men came with their gifts, Joseph was warned in a dream to flee. The holy family was uprooted to a foreign country.as Herod undertook an infanticide in Bethlehem. It is likely that the gold the magi gave helped them to survive this turbulent time, providing food and other necessities as they escaped Herod’s jealousy with literally just the clothes on their backs.

We look forward to beginning a new year, a year we hope will be much brighter despite many unknowns and ongoing concern about the pandemic. Perhaps we will be able to use gifts of 2021 that didn’t seem so wonderful to assist and carry us. I know that many will choose a word with personal meaning that will set the tone for this next 365 days. Others will set an intention, a guiding purpose, for the year.

For me, I hope that I choose to be a shepherd. I hope that I am ready and able to notice the angels singing and the heavenly messages that come my way guiding me to what is important and where God is active among us. I hope that I’m quick to go and find where God is leading me, and that I’m able to humbly stop and see Jesus wherever He turns up, recognizing the divine. I hope that I care for whatever sheep are entrusted to me in ministry or otherwise well, but that I never let them become more important to me than spending time with Christ Himself.

I say all of this now, but the temptation will be to be more like Herod. We all point him out as the villain and assume that we are nothing like him. But in life and ministry it is easy to jockey for position and status and recognition, to build palaces for ourselves and accumulate wealth off the backs of others, and to care for our own interests first. I’m still amazed that we are so concerned with booster shots for ourselves when much of the world has still not received any vaccines at all. When the likes of Elon Musk (who has a net worth estimated at $266 billion) are held up as celebrities then we know that there is something terribly broken in our world.

We have once again experienced the birth of the Messiah, God with us. We have the joy of knowing God within us. On this cusp of a new year, may we choose to live in humility, divinely guided to love our neighbours, care for creation and be willing to do whatever is needed to bring Jesus to those needing Him.