As Cold As Ice

I would hate to be a meteorologist in the MidWest. We have such crazy weather patterns, it would be like trying to predict one's pregnant wife's mood for the day - hypothetically speaking, of course. The complexity of those patterns only seem to be increasing with the current problem of climate change.

Today we are experiencing rain and ice in Kansas City. Who knows how long it will continue. But we endure it all because it is simply a part of the season. It is par for the course and we're an enduring people.

The hard, cold reality of winter has caused me to once again stop and reflect on the mystery of the Incarnation - the way in which God brought His presence to us. We could read the entire story of God, as the story of One who comes. Throughout the Old Testament, we read of a God who continues to come closer and closer to His creation - revealing more of Himself with every step. Then we read those powerful words, "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

It is in this season that we celebrate that reality - God's coming in the body of Christ. He assumed and took up all our brokenness and humanity that He might heal us and make us like Him. It is a powerful mystery. Yet, I think we often romanticize this whole Christmas thing. When I think about Christ's coming to us...I think about His coming to Bethlehem. He stepped into the dark, cold reality of our broken world.

Bethlehem is still a dusty little Palestinian-controlled town. When people go to visit the place of Jesus' birth, it seems that they get off the bus and hurry over to the Church of the Nativity, take their pictures, get back on the bus, and then head back to Jerusalem. You don't want to hang around in Bethlehem too long. It is small, poor, dirty and caught between two warring groups. This is certainly not the place we would have chosen for the birth of our Lord, but it is where Christmas happens.

The Advent season is the time that we talk about the Prince of Peace. We sing songs about peace on earth. I mean, isn't shalom the very thing that the angels proclaim? Peace on earth and good will toward all human beings on whom God's favor rests! But then we read in the actual story that Jesus birth elicits a reaction from the political ruler of this territory, King Herod, which results in a blood bath. Children being murdered. Families broken. Rachel weeping over the death of her children. Peace on earth?

We don't like to talk about that part of the story. That's Bethlehem - that is the real Christmas. We mean well. It's not that we want to lie. It is just really difficult to face the truth about Christmas because it is the truth about our world, which is also the truth about us. We want to hide our festering wounds. But God came. He came to Bethlehem. He came to Egypt and Nazareth. He came to Galilee and to Golgotha - exposing our wounds in His body that we might be healed.

God is love. And even though we deny it and don't like it, love involves pain and truth. To know this God of love requires our own crucifixion. We have gripped our own gods too tightly - the only way we will be free is if they are ripped from our hands. That is a painful process, which all began with a God who willingly comes to Bethlehem. May He come into the icy realities our our life today that we might die to experience real life in Him. Until next time - Blessings in Christ ~ RLS