CARING ENOUGH TO SEND THE VERY BEST

When we hear the slogan, “When you care enough to send the very best,” many of us think of Hallmark cards. Whatever the occasion – a birthday, an anniversary, an illness or a death, Hallmark cards usually get to the heart of the matter.

From pictures that are worth a thousand words, to words that offer reassurance and hope, Hallmark cards are no ordinary cards.

And today is no ordinary day.

Mary and Joseph – two very ordinary people – were going about their daily life when Emperor Augustus sent out a decree that all the world should be registered. In obedience to Roman law, Mary and Joseph left Nazareth to go to Bethlehem – an ordinary town 9 kilometers south of Jerusalem.

Sure, Bethlehem has some claim to fame – Rachel, wife of Jacob, likely was buried there, and King David’s ancestors lived there. Still, for the most part, Bethlehem is an ordinary town.

While Mary and Joseph are there, an extraordinary thing happens. Mary gives birth. The shepherds, whom many considered less than ordinary – among the lower elements of society – decide to visit the newborn Jesus. Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds aren’t the kind of people – and Bethlehem isn’t the kind of place we’d expect to make it on the cover of a Hallmark card.

But what seems like an ordinary event is imbued with the extraordinary – the angels in a heavenly chorus, herald the baby, the Messiah, the promised one of God. This is no ordinary event! It’s a good reminder that God makes much of little, and ordinary people can become extraordinary through the presence and power of God.

It is this extraordinary event that we celebrate each Christmas. Still, Christmas can be a very difficult and a very lonely time for many folks. Sure, none of us here is a shepherd – despised and marginalized by society – but many of us may feel marginalized in other ways.

While many celebrate in families, some of us will eat alone.
While many are surrounded by loved ones, some of us ache for the ones we’ve lost.
While many may gather in peace, some of us will have to face ongoing family conflict.

But this God who comes to us is well aware of the pain we carry. And this God reminds us that we are not alone. This God comes to offer hope – hope that our lives can be transformed – that they can be filled with peace, love and joy. This is a God of abundant grace – that unearned, unmerited favor that God shows to us – simply because God is God.

And we are children of that God.
And that God is no ordinary God.
And Christmas is no ordinary time.

Theologian, preacher and spiritual director Peter Gomes asserts that the miracle of Christmas
is that God cared enough to send the very best. He adds that this is the God who continues to send the very best in the gifts now given to us in one another.

That God would take on human form and come to live among us is cause for celebration.
It reminds us that we are hugely important to God.
It reminds us that we matter.
It reminds us that God cares enough to send the very best.

Gomes reminds us that God continues to be present among us through the gift given to us in one another. The One whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the One who also is present in each one of us. So we can be a gift to one another as we allow the One who is ultimate gift to transform us into people of light and life. So each of us may want to ask ourselves:

How am I making room for Christ to continue growing in me?
How am I being transformed as Christ grows in me?
How will Christ in you change the way I relate to God, others and myself?

Today is a good time to remember – to remember that God comes to ordinary folks like us – and, if we, like Mary and Joseph, keep following God in faith, what started out as an ordinary day can turn into an extraordinary life.