Somewhere between the angels giving the message to the shepherds and today the "good news of great joy" lost its goodness and joy. It seems to me that the focus, at some point, shifted to the bad news of the world and the scariness of Hell. Then, in a wonderful psychological trick, we offer a glimpse of goodness for people to latch onto.
But is it really good news of great joy when 95% of it is focused on how crappy we are as human beings? Is that why God came to walk among us? So that we could focus on how terrible we are and not on how wonderful God is? I dunno. I feel as though we need to make a shift. We need to repent, to turn, from our fascination with us and return our attention to God.
Maybe Christmas is a chance to do that. Maybe as we see God entering the world in the same way we all have, we can see the goodness of Creation. Maybe we can focus on the good news of great joy that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son to live as one of us. Sure, he lived without sin, but he still lived as one of us. His birth was just as messy as ours. His childhood was full of dirt. His hands were rough from the hammer and chisel. He was God and he was human and it was good.
At Draughting Theology this week we are pondering "what does it mean that God came to earth?" So I guess that's on my mind. What does it mean that God was human for 33 years. It means that our bodies are not inherently evil. It means that we have the possibility of goodness within us. It means that things aren't as bad as we have been led to believe. For me, today, that's the good news of great joy. And thanks be to God for a word of encouragement.
1 comment:
Wow, Spankey, that was positively positive! Yay for grace and for seeing it in the midst of dirt and grime.
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