Wednesday, December 21, 2016

                Yikes - it’s only four days until Christmas! Sound the alarm! Hit the panic button! Run around in circles. Pull your hair out! What am I doing sitting here writing this? I’ve got things to do, presents still to buy, lists to check and presents to wrap and…and…and. 

O Christmas cookies! How am I ever going to get it all done in so little time?

Why, oh why, didn’t I start weeks ago?

Why do I always wait until the last minute?

Why do I procrastinate about Christmas? Why do I put Christmas off until it becomes so stressful? The stores have been telling me for weeks that this Day was coming. But I ignored the signs.  There have been TV Christmas specials and everything. That should have been a clue. The radio has been playing the same six Christmas songs for weeks. That should have alerted me that Christmas was just around the corner.  Yikes, here IS the corner and I don’t know how to steer this thing, this Christmas runaway leviathan.   I think I am going to crash. You go on ahead; just leave me here on the side of the road to Bethlehem; there’s no reason both of us have to perish.

                Mary and Joseph would have a rueful laugh at my expense, I think. “In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered… All went to their own homes to be registered,” (Luke 2:1,3).  It is hard to tell how much warning that the couple had before they needed to be in Bethlehem. But it would seem that it had to be a rather short and demanding timeline if Mary was due any day.  It’s not like they could get in a car and be in Bethlehem in a few hours and get back home quickly. It might have taken several days by donkey and foot, and we just assume a donkey since there is no actual mention of one in the story.

Maybe they kept putting the trip off as long as they could, hoping the baby would arrive before they had to go. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning, I promise,” said Joseph. “I don’t feel up to travelling today,” said Mary. “I have  to finish this last carpentry job,” said Joseph. “Hee Haw,” said the donkey.

                Then they had to leave in hurry and totally forgot to go on-line and make hotel reservations. The Emperor won’t be kept waiting.

                Sounds like my kind of Christmas. Talk about last minute stress. Talk about poor timing.

                Yet despite it all, Christmas happens. “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger,” (Luke 2:7).  It may not have been the ideal place to have a baby; it may not be the start that Mary and Joseph had hoped for their child; it may not have been according to their plans, but nonetheless Jesus was born. All is calm; all is bright.

                Let us encourage each other to remember this. Christmas happens. It may not be as perfect as you would have liked, but neither was the first Christmas in some ways. The ribbons might not curl just right; you run out of adhesive tape when wrapping; the wrong colour arrives; the cookies burn; the dog eats the Christmas cake and is sick; you have a fight with your toddler; you  can’t find the Christmas wrapping paper you bought last year; it’s freezing rain outside; you forgot to buy the figgy pudding; you really need to find time to see old, great Auntie Bertha at the home; the parcel hasn’t arrived yet from Amazon; and… and… and.

                All is calm; all is bright.

                Christmas is going to happen.

                All is calm; all is bright.

                Repeat after me: All is calm; all is bright.

           

Dale