It appears that I only take time to contemplate and actually write my thoughts down near holidays. So here is my Christmas post. Written after some time of reflection and after another fantastic evening at Grandma's with the family I have spent over 20 years of Christmas' with. With my love here goes...
What is the central message of Christmas? Is it the love of Christ? Is it the act of giving gifts? Is it the time spent honoring those we love with our presence and our joy? Or are these just by-products of a more fundamental truth? I believe the answer lies in the very beginning of the Christmas story.
The story starts with a birth, the story begins with hope. What can be more hopeful than the birth of a child? An empty canvas with all the colors of the world available to be painted upon it…a life unburdened with the sorrows the world and our fellow man can offer. And what a hope this particular birth brought…the hopes of generations of peoples on the shoulders of an infant. And what faith does God have in this story; to pass the continuing of His kingdom, the hopes of His people, and the continuing of His very being to the son of a carpenter.
What faith in the goodness of his creation does God show? Why does he trust that His son’s message will be carried? In the hearts of a few men and women was the mission passed to and yet it burned as an unquenchable fire in the bellies that could not be denied. What led them to risk and ultimately lose life over Christ’s message? What pushed them to the very ends of their earth? It was hope.
Jesus offered a glimmer of hope; for many long looked for and for others a deux ex machina (aid unlooked for). He was a calm voice in a wilderness of doubt, a healer in the midst of no cure and a beacon of light in a sea of an infinite darkness. Christ’s birth set in motion a chain of events that shook the very foundations of the world upon which we and our ancestors have existed and continue to exist. If for nothing else this one fact would both comfort and embolden me. Our life is intrinsically tied to those who have come before us, those we encounter in our journey, and those that we leave behind; the impact we can have on all of those journeys is one of incredible magnitude; that which should never be taken lightly, but always taken with hopeful hearts. This day among all others we should remember Jesus Christ, his birth, and the hope it offers to us. His life is a testament to all that is good in this world. I ask that on this day we cast aside our doubts, lean not on our fears, and plunge forward into our lives with a child-like belief in hope; understanding that, as every artist knows, our canvas is as filled with as many possibilities for joy as it was the day we were born. We must believe in the vision of joy, pick up the brush filled with hope, and paint the pictures of our lives in vibrant strokes of yellow.
To those that I love the most in this world, Merry Christmas!
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