Christmas Love

"Merry Christmas" seems like a mild expression to share when something so incredibly miraculous has taken place.  It almost sounds as weak as "Have a Nice Day" would sound if you were talking to someone who just won the lottery.

What we commemorate is nothing short of God coming to be one of us. Christ came into the world to bring us love.  He became small, fragile, vulnerable so He could know intimacy with us.

In the book, The Greatest Gift, by Anne Voskamp, she writes:
"So God throws open the door of this world - and enters as a baby.  As the most vulnerable imaginable.  Because He wants unimaginable intimacy with you." (pg. 235)

What an incredible thought...inconceivable! God chooses to become breakable, fragile, dependent, so that we can relate to Him. He wants a relationship with me, with you.

"What God ever came so tender we could touch Him? So fragile that we could break Him? So vulnerable that His bare, beating heart could be hurt? Only the One who loves you to death." (pg. 235)

Christmas is a reminder and a challenge for us to choose daily to be in relationship with a God who cares deeply about us.

"Christmas is about God doing whatever it takes to be with us - and our doing whatever it takes to be with Him." (pg. 236)

Of course, Christmas, His birth, is only the beginning of this love story. We celebrate the Christmas season for another couple weeks, through Epiphany and the coming of the wise men.  The story will continue through to Holy Week and Easter when Jesus will make the ultimate sacrifice for us. He will love us to the point of death.

It is hard to wrap my mind around these events, but I can choose to sit with these ideas, take time to reflect, knowing that in my limited, human reasoning I will never fully unwrap this gift, this mystery. I can allow glimpses to penetrate my life and transform my heart into one of daily joy.

I can be thankful.  I can share the truth of this gift with others.

How have you experienced God's love for you in a personal way?