After weeks of candles and waiting, of naming the
dark and daring to hope, here we are. Christmas. The day when all the Advent
crescendos into one outrageous claim: “The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us” (John 1:14).
This is the culmination of everything Advent has taught us to
hold.
Hope—that even in the world’s unfinishedness, God is not done yet.
Peace—not the absence of chaos but God’s presence in it.
Joy—not glittery optimism, but the stubborn delight that arrives anyway.
Love—not sentimental, but embodied in the form of a baby, dependent and
vulnerable.
Christmas is God’s declaration that God will not remain
distant. Love does not hover above the fray. Love is born into it: among
animals and straw, political oppression and family scandal, the ordinary ache
of human life. It is the good news that changes everything.
So if your Christmas feels picture-perfect or like a chaotic
mess (or both, depending on the moment), you are right where the story has
always been. God does not come to the curated, but to the crowded, the
tired, the not-ready. God comes to us.
Blessed are we this Christmas,
astonished again at Love made flesh.
Blessed are we who dare to believe:
God is here—
in the dark, in the ordinary,
in us, and for us.
-Kate Bowler
