Not just any night
I'm delivering this brief reflection tonight, Christmas Eve:
This night carries so many memories and feelings.
We remember the excitement of getting and receiving gifts.
We long for the warm fuzzies proclaimed by the greeting cards that somehow don't match our real lives.
We relish the feelings of joy and wishes for peace that fade after a few days.
But this night is more.
This night is the beginning of … a revolution.
The birth of this child fractures the status quo.
He was born not to bless our ways of doing things but to radically shift them.
It is a revolution that levels playing fields, that fills the hungry and sends the rich away, that makes the last first.
His is a revolution that redirects us from trying to position ourselves for God's favor and instead calls broken, fragile people like me and you to be his heart and voice and hands and feet right here and now.
His is a revolution that reveals the margins of life as a place where God is powerfully and mercifully active… perhaps, even more so than at what we call the center.
A revolution that embraces the poor, the broken, those who don't have it all together, and that leads kings and priests to want to stamp it out.
This child loves you so much that empties himself of power and privilege to take on your burdens.
He doesn't ask for your gold, for your Chanel, for your iPod, for your investments…
He asks for you.
He asks you to redefine your life in the light of that night in a Bethlehem stable … and that Friday on a hill near Jerusalem, and that Sunday morning outside an empty tomb.
The revolution has begun.
Are you in?
This night carries so many memories and feelings.
We remember the excitement of getting and receiving gifts.
We long for the warm fuzzies proclaimed by the greeting cards that somehow don't match our real lives.
We relish the feelings of joy and wishes for peace that fade after a few days.
But this night is more.
This night is the beginning of … a revolution.
The birth of this child fractures the status quo.
He was born not to bless our ways of doing things but to radically shift them.
It is a revolution that levels playing fields, that fills the hungry and sends the rich away, that makes the last first.
His is a revolution that redirects us from trying to position ourselves for God's favor and instead calls broken, fragile people like me and you to be his heart and voice and hands and feet right here and now.
His is a revolution that reveals the margins of life as a place where God is powerfully and mercifully active… perhaps, even more so than at what we call the center.
A revolution that embraces the poor, the broken, those who don't have it all together, and that leads kings and priests to want to stamp it out.
This child loves you so much that empties himself of power and privilege to take on your burdens.
He doesn't ask for your gold, for your Chanel, for your iPod, for your investments…
He asks for you.
He asks you to redefine your life in the light of that night in a Bethlehem stable … and that Friday on a hill near Jerusalem, and that Sunday morning outside an empty tomb.
The revolution has begun.
Are you in?
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