With all the tasks that must be done by Christmas morning,
many of us can get caught up in the chaos and not in the beauty of the peace
that Christmas brings. We have presents to buy and wrap. We have brunches,
dinners, and sweets to bake before Christmas Day. We have people to contact,
and church services to attend. In all the chaos for Christmas Day, we must
continue to live our daily lives. We long for a moment of peace.
For years, I dreamed of a quiet and peaceful Christmas, just
like the one Jesus had. One year, my mom asked what I wanted for Christmas, and
I responded with a day of sleep. I didn’t get that. We had a day of fun, but I wanted
what I thought would be a day of peace. It has taken me years to discover that
peace comes with the chaos, not instead of it.
If we take a close look at that first Christmas and the
birth of Jesus, we find the utter and total chaos that accompanied Jesus’s
entrance into the world. First, Mary has an angel tell her she will give birth
to a son that she will conceive through the Holy Spirit. That makes sense to us
now because we know the entire story, but for Mary, it sounded confusing. For Joseph,
it sounded blasphemous, so he decided to divorce her.
In a dream, an angel tells Joseph to marry Mary, and that he
would be the father of the Messiah. He obeys. Then, the king calls for a
census. In our modern society, that doesn’t mean much, but at that time, people
had to travel to the land of their ancestors. His hometown happened to be
Bethlehem. So, he loaded up his pregnant wife, and they traveled to Bethlehem. Yes,
Mary and Joseph traveled for that first Christmas.
Just like our lives today, Joesph and Mary encountered chaos
in their travels. Bethlehem resided as a small town. So, the one place to stay
didn’t have any rooms, so they offered Joseph a barn, where Mary gave birth to
Jesus. She placed him in a manger, or a feed trough. Imagine giving birth to a
baby in a barn and not a warm room with midwives helping.
Imagine the shepherds out at night walking through the
fields and seeing the stars and enjoying the peace and quiet. The angel
appeared to them suddenly and told them not to be afraid. Their quiet and
peaceful night got interrupted, so with all that interruption, they went to see
Jesus.
Joseph finally found a place to stay, and then Magi from the
East came and brought gifts for a king of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The gifts
sound atrocious to the casual reader, but if you read into the story, Joseph used
those gifts for passage to Egypt. He had to get Mary and Jesus out of Bethlehem
in Judea and fleet to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath who wanted to kill Jesus
and all babies two years old and under.
Jesus came into this chaotic world with chaos, but he
brought us peace. He doesn’t give us the peace that the world has, but a peace
that reassures us of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life with Him. Jesus
came into our human world and experienced all the chaos that we experience. He
understands us. He loves us with all our chaos that we bring to Him.
This Christmas, as we try to find moments of peace, may we remember to always look to Jesus in the chaos and know that peace is always with us.
