Gleanings…                                                                                       

And so, we come to December.  Depending upon your point of view, it is either the last month of the year or the first.  It is blessed to mark the first day of Winter, Christmas Day, the first day of Hanukkah, the first day of Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve (not to forget birthdays and anniversaries both good and painful).  Each of these days herald new beginnings and we hope that each beginning will portend a better time to come.

What is your hope for this month with its many holidays?  Are you looking for a new opportunity or a do-over?  Are you hoping for better fortune to shine in your life or for fairer treatment?

Those who claim the identification of Christian view the birth of Jesus as THE event that meets our hopes and expectations.  The birth of one child into a world filled with abuse, pain, war, misery, and loss of hope would not make much of a difference, normally.  The birth of Jesus, though, announced for all to hear that God was still very much concerned for the world and its peoples.  Living as we have always lived, seeing one another as less valuable than we imagined ourselves, and maintaining a climate of self-care over all other needs, were unacceptable.  There needed to be a reminder of how we were supposed to live.

Born to an unwed mother and her fiancée in a small town away from home, born where the only privacy is in the animal’s stable on the lower level of the house, and laid in a feeding trough for a bed, Jesus was born that reminder from God.  Every factor of that inauspicious beginning spoke volumes to people long oppressed.  They understood poor, they understood awkward family relationships where babies can appear suddenly.  They understood a government that cared little for the people or their life circumstances.  To them, Jesus’ birth fit the model of the way things are.

To those with influence and power, Jesus’ birth was uncomfortable and troubling.  Where was the evidence of authority?  Where was the fulfillment of centuries of great expectations?  So, they questioned, and they doubted, and they sought to make him insignificant.  They could not, however, ignore him.  And the people delighted in his teaching, his standing up to authority, and his care for the poor, the passed-by, and ignored.

We still have those people in our midst.  You see them everywhere and they see us.  What good news do we have to share?  How can we help to make this world a little more just, a little more fair?  What can we do to show we care?  That Jesus cares?

If you answered “Yes” to the questions above and a do-over, a new start, an opportunity to make life a little fairer and more of a blessing to others, this month offers a good place (and time) to start.  What has God laid on your heart?  What do you hope to accomplish this year that will mark it as better than the previous year(s)?  Let’s do this.  Together.

Pray for peace,

Pastor Braxton ><>