Merry Christmas 2023 · 23 December 2023
Christmas time is a time to be with family and friends. It is a time to gather round the Christmas tree. It is a time to be thankful. It is a time to remember the first Christmas.
It has been over 2000 years since the first Christmas. Nobody thought of it as Christmas then. And besides a specific child’s parents, only a handful of shepherds recognized the day as special. But the shepherds were told by an angel and a heavenly host that something wonderful had happened. And so they left their sheep to go see the baby, who on his eighth day would be named Jesus.
It is interesting that the shepherds left their sheep. They must have realized that those sheep would be safe while they went and visited the King of kings and Lord of lords. Or they were just so excited that could not help but just drop everything and go.
I would like to be like that. I would like to hear God speak, and just drop everything and do whatever it is that he says. Then again, I suppose that I have been trying to listen and do what I am supposed to do. After all, here I am still posting my weekly blog so that my few faithful readers (both real and imaginary) can read whatever musings I put forth. I suppose that is something. After all, if God did not call me to write, He at least gave me the gift of writing. (Even if some might call it a curse.)
I suppose that I kinda did that when I became a teacher, too. There was a divine nature to my choosing that path. You see, I had other plans, but they fell through. In fact, I could have stayed safe and sound in my comfy job as an engineer, but I had to venture out. Like I said, my other plans fell through, but I followed through on a different plan. I became a teacher, because I loved teaching my Sunday school kids about God and Jesus. How hard could it be teaching high school kids about engineering and programming? Harder, for sure. (But that is a completely different story.)
It might seem a long way from thinking about the first Christmas to thinking about my teaching career, but it is not that much of a stretch. After all, I left my flock like the shepherds left theirs on that Christmas night. But I knew I would not be back. I trusted that God would take care of them. And I trusted that God would take care of me.
He has. God has led me to the right job. He led me to the right person to have a family with. He led me to this point in my teaching and writing career. All because I decided to follow Jesus one Sunday when I was a kid sitting in the back row of the kid service in a big church in Colorado. I never looked back. Oh sure, I have had setbacks. We all do. But deciding to follow Jesus was the best and only decision that we need to make in our lives. The rest is doing our best to honor that commitment. That commitment to follow Him. Wherever He leads.
Unlike those shepherds at the first Christmas, we might not need to drop everything to follow Jesus. Be we might. And we should be prepared to do so. After all, Jesus dropped everything to be with us. And He experienced the worst thing that anybody could experience so that we do not need to. No. Not death on the cross. That might be the worst thing for a human to experience. Jesus experienced something much worse. Jesus experienced something that I hope none of us ever experiences. He experienced God turning away from Him. He experienced being forsaken by God so that we would never need to experience that. And then, God raised Jesus from the grave, took Him from the power of sin and death, so that we too might experience what being with God is truly like.
It might seem funny or strange to think about Easter at Christmas time. But without the worst moment in history (Jesus’ crucifixion) followed by the best moment in history (Jesus’ resurrection), Christmas would not be a thing. I love Christmas, but only because I know it is the beginning of the greatest love story ever told. Well, I suppose in reality, it is not the beginning, just the beginning of the climax of the story.
The children’s song says, “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.” I believed the song then and I believe it now. And now, I believe the Bible because history and archeology and science and culture and so much more tell me that the Bible is God’s message of love to us and for us.
It is Christmas time. Time for family and friends. Time for loving and giving. Time for remembering the first Christmas. I hope that you take time to remember the first Christmas. And I hope that it becomes as special for you as it is for me.
Merry Christmas everybody. Happy birthday, Jesus.
© 2023 Michael T. Miyoshi
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