Happy Christmas to you on this white Christmas morning! I often wonder if Joseph made plans other than having a child right away. If Joseph had plans for travel, he got to do that. Visit another country with his young wife? Yes, he got to do that as well. But what if Joseph's plans were to settle down near family and have a child maybe in a few years after the finances stabilized? Nope, God had other plans. Now, imagine Joseph's thoughts upon learning that his betrothed was pregnant. Christmas may not bring us quite the news that we would like every year. However, Joseph got to raise God's own Son.
Bad or good, news that disrupts our plans may be just the thing God uses to bring us closer to Him and to make us productive in our fruit-bearing. A time of trial and suffering may raise us to a higher level of faith and commitment to God. Does that happen at Christmas? Yes, I think that God gives out gifts at this time too. The wrapping on the gift from God may seem a bit distressing. That next gift I receive may look a lot like a lump of coal, but that is only the wrapping. The best gift God sent didn't look like much at first either. A baby in a trough where the animals ate? A man dying on a cross? I'm sure Joseph might have thought of a few other items for that first Christmas list.
"How about a nice Roman palace with hot baths and a few servants, Lord? Then we'll have the baby in the usual way! We'll raise him in style to be king when he reaches fourteen or so How does that sound?" Joseph didn't get a wish like that though.
Within a couple of years, just after a rather interesting visit from some magi from the east, Joseph and Mary had to pack up and flee the country in the dark of night. What sort of king is this? A king who needed God's protection and his parents' efforts, just like we did at that young age. Did Jesus grow up wealthy? Sorry kid, the gold, frankincense, and myrrh financed a sudden trip to Egypt. We don't know that of course, but Jesus didn't begin his ministry with a sack of gold from what we read in the gospels. At the end, the body of Jesus didn't look like a beautifully wrapped Christmas gift. On the third day, things changed forever!
We too may look at our lives and see a very tarnished and beaten wrapper, full of holes where loss caused us great pain and suffering. Our bodies may not look very glorified right now, in fact we probably don't see the glory in us at all. But one day, Jesus will raise us up and under that wrapper of sin and suffering is a new creation, a gift our Lord has been working on for a long time!
Have a wonderful, happy Christmas in Christ!Bucky
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