Inconsistencies

 

The frosty morning weather of a few days ago is now long past. As the sun rose yesterday, you could literally see the return of the unseasonably warm weather. Rolling in with the dark clouds came the warm, humid feel of Spring. The lights and decorations just don’t look the same to me when the weather is so warm. The music of the season sounds out of place to my ears. Things just don’t seem to fit together.

But it came to me that, perhaps, such inconsistencies actually fit the story we are telling quite well. As I thought about it, there are many elements of the story that appear to not fit together so well. We believe God was at work in the world, yet the world of Mary and Joseph languished under the heavy boot of the Roman Empire. We believe that the baby born was King of Kings, yet he was laid in a feeding trough. Angels proclaim “Glory to God” and “Peace on earth”, yet soon the family flees as refugees to a foreign land to escape the wrath of a murderous King. We believe that this birth changed the world, yet, even now, the world can be a cold, hard and inhospitable place for far too many. So much of the story does not seem to fit together.

But that is the power of it all. Jesus was born into this world where things don’t always fit together. Jesus was born into this life that can be filled with indescribable beauty one moment and unimaginable pain the next. God is still at work in the world, even when we can’t see the difference. The message of what God longs for us to know and experience is the truth, even if we reject it or misunderstand it.

John put it like this, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The grace and truth of Jesus still dwells among us, regardless of circumstances and appearances. So let the warm front roll in and the temperatures rise. It is still Christmas.

Peace.