I was just thinking about Christmas as a kid: life after Christmas is unbelievably depressing because you've been waiting for the great big day, and then the day comes, and then its over. And for a few days you are stuck looking at the Christmas tree and Christmas lights, and all of a sudden it is very stale and the anticipation is over.
Well, this year, I am leaving for Africa three days after Christmas. Little different ring to that, I guess. The climax doesn't end, actually it sort of intensifies as I get ready to leave my own culture again.
And why, now, am I leaving my home and going to Africa for a month? Because I believe that this holiday represents something real to celebrate- that God came and wandered among humanity to offer us the cure to our sin disease. And maybe there are some people in Ethiopia who don't know that- don't know that Christmas is worth celebrating because of that.
So tonight while we sang "O Come Let Us Adore Him" at church I had this overwhelming sense of relief. Not the end of the climax, His birth was just the beginning. The beginning of putting everything right, of His ultimate rule that will never end. We have pain and dissonance in lots of places in our lives- I see it in our own family sometimes- but He came, and I thought to myself... its ok. Everything is going to be ok, no matter what happens, it will be ok. Because You came. You really came to set us right.
I hope my heart is preparing room for Him tonight.
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