Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living
On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. Matthew 2:11
It’s the day after Christmas and all through the house there are piles of junk, cast off toys, and piles of unwanted gifts to be returned as soon as possible. Perhaps you’re hoping to exchange the flannel shirt Uncle Joe gave you (which you suspect was given to him at the office Christmas party). The kids have already found that the cardboard boxes their toys came in are more interesting to play with than the items which the boxes originally contained, something that creates a dark cynicism asking, “Is this all the thanks I get for working so hard to buy this stuff?”
You’ve already made the decision to trash the tree by tomorrow, and you’re ready to get on with the business—whatever it is. May I ask you—and that’s why I feel—“What’s the business, anyway?” What is the main thing in your life?” And in pondering this, I’d like you to answer another question: “Is there any correlation between the focus of the Christmas holidays—and what drives and motivates your life after the Christmas decorations are gone and the poinsettias have wilted?
Some of you just want to get Christmas out of the way. It’s clutter, and you’d just as soon put it behind you. But others of you bask in the reality of the meaning of Christmas, the Incarnation. For you, Jesus is not a babe whose manger is getting pretty old and dusty. He is a living person, whom you know, a reality who has become a living presence. For you, Christmas is not a festivity but a birthday. Enriched by this celebratory time, you begin to ponder the coming year.
Do you remember the phrase from the Gospel of John, often quoted at Christmastime, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”? The word “to dwell” meant “to pitch a tent.” Eugene Peterson put it graphically as he paraphrased, saying, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son… generous inside and out, true from start to finish” (John 1:14).
Did you catch his phrase, he “moved into the neighborhood”? In other words, Jesus relocated. Perhaps when someone of a different ethnic background moves into your neighborhood, you get tense and nervous. “They are different from us,” you say, and immediately erect a barrier, a bias which may be completely without foundation.
Have we also done this with Jesus Christ? The Jesus in the Christmas play is safe enough. But what of the Jesus, the Living One who reaches out to the homeless, the immigrant, the outcast, the prostitute, or the economically-challenged guy who pushes a grocery cart with all his possessions in it and carries a sign which says, “Will work for food”? What about the mother of three children from three different men, with no job and no husband? Do you find yourself wondering, “What were you thinking!?” rather than “What do you need?”
The real Jesus—the One who became flesh at Bethlehem, the One who wants to touch the lives of people through you today—isn’t pushed aside so easily as packing up the Christmas decorations and forgetting the whole season. He compels us to look around us to see who needs us to be His hands and feet.
The real Jesus moved into our neighborhood and, therefore, life can never go back to what it was before He came. “Getting on with business” after Christmas must include the risen Lord who will someday return from heaven. As you “get on with business,” make sure dispensing His love and grace is your business. May we enter the New Year with eyes that see those who need Him most.
Resource reading: Philippians 2:1-18
