Most of us have grown up celebrating Christmas in some capacity. Because it is so familiar, the full message and weight of what is happening in this season can sometimes be lost. I wrote this letter (like old fashioned, in the mail...crazy right?!) for my church family and friends. But, if you're here, you count too. I just don't have your address!
Friends and Church Family,
The last thing most of us need is a reminder of this year’s challenges. But permit me to offer a few personal reflections. As most of you know, this has been a hard year for me and my family. It feels like any one of the events individually would have been a more than sufficient stressor. But all together? And all at once?
The downside of our modern society is that we can easily forget that trials are a very normal part of human existence. We are remarkably fragile. Disease, death, accidents, injuries, emotional wounding, relational blowouts…these have been a normal part of the human drama for millennia. And those trials are always opportunities – to lean into Jesus or to turn from him. As Pete Greig, one of my favorite authors and teachers has written, ““Life’s great trials invariably make us bitter or make us better. They never leave us unchanged.”
Whatever your experience has been this year, I would like to encourage you – God doesn’t waste your hurts. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s profoundly true. There is nothing so brutal he cannot redeem; nothing so broken he cannot reforge; nothing so dead he cannot resurrect.
When I came back from Israel last year, many of you asked me if there was one spot, one place, where I felt the presence of God most powerfully. And I surely did. But it wasn’t a “holy place”. It was a cave that was used as a sheepfold. We had toured the palaces of Herod and seen Greek Amphitheaters. We saw the ruins of the Temple in Jerusalem and old Roman fortresses. But the one who was in very nature God – the creator and King of the Cosmos – did not come to a palace; he did not come to a temple; he did not come to a fortress. Rather, in utter and absolute humility, he allowed himself to be born like us among literal animals, to hurt like us, to cry like us, to lie in the filth like us, and, ultimately, to die like us. This is the message of Christmas – pure and unvarnished but equally messy: God is with us.
This simple reality demonstrates the depths of God’s love in ways little else can. It is a truth that caused the Hosts of Heaven to erupt with a thunderous “Hallelujah!” It is a truth that converted the entire Roman Empire. And it is a truth that can change your every day if you let it. God is with you – in your victories and defeats, in your cleanliness and your messiness, in your hopes and fears – God is with you.
Whatever the New Year may hold for us, know that the Gospel is still true and God is still good. He is with you! And as always, I’ll be praying for you.
Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year,
Steve
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