What Now?
Christmas has come and gone. Whatever anxiety we may have had about it has been resolved. We gave and received gifts. We had our Christmas feast. Christmas for most of us has been an event. In fact, if we look to the gospel of Luke chapter 2, we will see Christmas portrayed as just that.
The gospel of John is different though. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” John 1:1. Also consider, “the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” John1:14.
Gail O’Day indicates that these verses point out an intersection between the eternal world and the temporal world. Jesus is God and yet Jesus is human. Jesus dwells with God yet Jesus dwells with us. For John, Christmas is not an event but the reality of God with us and His impact on our world and our lives. To that end, as Brian Stoffregen has said, the real Christmas starts when the angel’s song is over, when the star is no longer seen, when the shepherds and the wise men have returned home.
What now? Now we live our lives with Emmanuel, God with us, as our guide.
Pastor Gary
