Close: A Christmas Eve Meditation
A meditation brought froth from Luke 2:1-20 offered on December 24, 2021
Christmas isn’t for planners. You might know this already. Tomorrow morning will be full of children and grandchildren reaching for presents with their names on them. The chaos of ripped and crinkled wrapping paper strewn across the living room floor and flying through the air. In moments like these, we realize that our Christmas plans mean nothing at all. Add all those moments up and what you have is Christmas—the surprise of it all, the marvel on each one of those smiling faces you see, family and friends wrapped around a Christmas tree together.
All the stuff no one could ever plan—that’s Christmas.
Is it any wonder that Christmas came first to those who had no plans that evening? There were a few shepherds in the fields outside the city limits of Bethlehem that evening. When everyone was going about their plans, too distracted to notice anything new, the angels chose to announce their glorious Good News to the quiet and attentive ones—the ones who distanced themselves from distraction.
God knows who has ears to hear His coming. And that night, the only ones receptive enough were far outside the city. Shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. They could hear heaven’s message. They had their heads up that first Christmas. They had what it took to see the angels among them. They noticed the signs when no one else could.
Jesus doesn’t arrive this night with bursts of fanfare—trumpets, alleluia choruses. God doesn’t use megaphones to make known this Message. This Christmas Eve, the Good News is announced to us, but the only way to hear it is if we make ourselves available for it. Then, just like the shepherds, once we hear the news that God has taken on flesh and now dwells among us, we must make our way to Him. The promise of this night is that we can find Him, see Him face to face; we can encounter the living God, know Him, and be known by Him. Then, like the shepherds, spend the rest of our lives in breathless witness to what we have seen.
This Christmas Eve is full of comfort and joy, but we are also presented with a task: to take those first daring steps through the darkness of our own hillsides and set out—go venturing, wandering, making our way closer, day by day, to Jesus.
We will make this journey well by leaning into our faith, one stumbling, stuttering step at a time. Like the shepherds, we’re not sure what we’ll encounter, but we set out anyway—risk the journey, because we too have been given a Word from the heavens, and we’ve heard it tell us that what we will find is all we’ll ever need to find.
Christmas isn’t a time to know everything we need to know. How it’ll all work out. It isn’t about making plans and sticking to them. Christmas is a time to wonder, to stand in awe of what God has done and is still doing among us, and to be astounded that God has invited us to participate in it.
I think that’s what the shepherds would say to us about this night. Be amazed and come close. Because, on that first Christmas night, heaven held them close. Mary held Jesus close. The heavens held the earth close. There at the manger, the shepherds, held in praise and wonder, became a part of the great story of God.
And they didn’t plan any of it. How could they? How could any of us?
Merry Christmas!
All praises to the One who made it all and finds it beautiful! Alleluia! Amen.