The miracle of this feast is that God Himself – who is the Almighty Creator – is in fact also a CREATURE on Christmas Day.
My second son is easily distracted. He does not have any diagnosable condition, but he is certainly a creature who can become entirely side-tracked from the task at hand.
For example, if he is supposed to be completing his maths homework, but he is annoyed or irritated that he even has to complete that homework at all, he will become so distracted from that work that he will literally stop himself from paying attention to the work and completing it and instead spend his valuable homework time thinking of all the different ways that this task is unfair and that he is suffering…
And this causes him to take twice or three times as long to complete the task because he is unwilling to commit to it and wants instead to focus on ways that he might be able to “get out” of completing this task at all…
There are so many distractions in the lead up to Christmas. School holidays kick in, and people are tired. Children are busy making lists of all the things they want to have and receive. And parents are busy tidying things up before the end of the year. Christmas parties are getting attended and gifts purchased and food and drink consumed. Holidays are being planned and houses are being cleaned in time for the holiday season…
It is – perhaps for my family – the busiest time of the year, and one of the most tiring as well.
And I have been thinking about that as I have been thinking about distractions. You see, in all the distractions and the busyness of the holiday season it can be incredibly easy to forget just how important it is to focus on the one true thing that matters… God!
And this is not to say that there is no point in having the parties and buying the gifts and consuming the food and drink, but it is to say that there is great merit to be had in spending time in reflection on the Greatness of a God who humbled Himself to be born as a CREATURE.
The miracle of this feast is that God Himself – who is the Almighty Creator – is in fact also a CREATURE on Christmas Day. And when you stop to think about that it is the strangest and most bizarre reality that any soul could ever imagine…
It would be like saying that I would “will” myself to become a single-cell bacteria so that the other bacteria could attack and kill me (under horrendous and unfair circumstances) in order to save all the bacteria…
And when I think about it like that , all the other distractions seem to pale into insignificance and the entire focus of my existence seems to centre on the fact that my Magnanimous God has made Himself little- just for me…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.