A joy-ful Christmas to you

I wish I could be more personal in wishing you a joy-ful Christmas but this is the best I can do on a blog. Actually, I have been so behind in sending out greetings this year - it's dispiriting when every drop of cards through the letter box (I'm in the UK!) has me scrambling to keep up the pace.  But, especially because it is such a season of goodwill and good news, I keep hoping for understanding friends. 

We had a Taize service at our local church on Sunday, with a choir leading us through Taize music. Included in the programme was a meditation by the gifted writer and painter, Eddie Askew. Surprisingly, it challenged covering up the rough edges of the coming of Jesus with any sentimental, sweeter rewriting. He begins:

Some peasant women in Nicaragua were discussing the Nativity scene set up in church. One said, 'Mary wouldn't have been wearing those beautiful blue and white clothes. She'd have been dressed like the poor, like us.' Another said 'And she had rough hands like ours.  

Meditating on Mary and Joseph's rough hands he continues;

As the baby grew, the hand of God was rough in Jesus' life. From wilderness experience to the life of a wandering teacher, it wasn't easy being God's son. He had to face the doubt, the questionings, the growing hatred, and the rejection of the establishment. And finally the cross. And there the soldiers' hands were rough, calloused and callous, and so was the wood. No Softness there. But through the roughness, love was let loose into the world. And because of the roughness, the suffering and the pain in Jesus' life, the poor of Nicaragua can recognize God-with-us and identify with him. If the hand of God had been only gentle he would have been less relevant, easier to ignore.

The Christmas story is glorious. It does fill with joy. But it should also push us more deeply to meditate on the cost and significance of Immanuel, God with us.  May you have a deep Joy-filled Christmas.