One of the interesting things about Christmas is how soon it's all over. A week from today it will be done. I'll write my last Advent entry, we'll all open presents, and the "shopping days" countdown will be reset for 2010. Sure there will be a few stray parties and post-holiday sales, but Christmas 2009 will be history. In Luke 2:20 it says, "The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." The important thing to remember is that the shepherds went back to being shepherds. They had to take their amazing experience of the birth of Jesus back to their mundane lives and figure out how to merge the two. It's the same for us. The key for all who have any kind of experience of Jesus Christ is to follow the shepherds' example. They were "glorifying and praising" their way forward in life, even though they were not relieved of their station in life, which, by the way, was a low one. If Advent and Christmas mean anything to us, we have to hold on to them all year long. Though the tasks and problems of our daily lives sometimes seem immune to and unchanged by whatever we go through spiritually, the change we experience on the inside can be real and significant. If shepherds can do it, so can we. We can be what's changed the most about our lives. The shepherds didn't win the lottery or even get better jobs after meeting Jesus, but they did gain their souls and a new song.
What long-term, spiritual differences are you looking for inside yourself in 2010? When Advent and Christmas end, what about them doesn't end for you and how does this make a difference in your life?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Technically, Christmas isn't over until Jan. 6 (Epiphany) :-)
ReplyDeleteYour point is well-taken, though!
Just like the shepherds, the wise men were changed by their encounter with Jesus and couldn't live the same way anymore. As T.S. Eliot wrote in "The Journey of the Magi," they were "no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation."