All Stirred Up!

"Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these [truths of the Gospel], even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right…to stir you up by way of reminder,"
– 2 Peter 1:12-13

I find this time of year, that it is easy to quickly rehearse the Christmas story and, because I have heard it so many times, gloss over it, and not give it the attention it deserves. I know the story well. I could quote it to you without thinking:
2+2=4!
Virgin Mary + Baby Jesus = Christmas Story!
Shepherds x Wiseman = rocking party + (cool gifts)3.
It’s formulaic. Here just days away from Christmas, I need my heart stirred up by way of reminder. I need to be reminded that the God of the ages, who is too awesome to be contained by the heavens, put on flesh and lived the human life for thirty-three years. I need to be reminded that God submitted not only to a human life, but submitted to nine months in the womb; submitted to being born.

Ours is not a God who takes the easy way. He could have revealed himself in the form of Man fully grown, appearing from nowhere. But God gave himself a past, a childhood full of an early exile and painful moves in the middle of the night. Our God choose to identify with us in our sufferings from the greatest to the smallest, from the latest to the earliest. The maker of the Universe was made in the womb of Mary. The
Author of all life was born. Christmas is not a wonderful children’s bedtime story. It is the story of God invading enemy territory with a plan to release a captive people.

The Christmas story is inextricably linked with the Passion and Easter story. God came, God lived, God experienced, God loved, God died, God conquered, God lived, God saved. This Christmas, let us stir up one another by way of remembering the wonderful true story that was handed down to us from ages past. We, the captive people, have been freed.

Merry Christmas.

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