Merry Christmas!
How has your Christmas season been this year? Have you enjoyed the festivities? Do you feel settled and relaxed or stressed and frantic? My Christmas season has been busy – all the regular stuff and a few extra unexpected things. No matter what’s happened in the recent weeks, we’re closing in on Christmas in just a few days.
And with Christmas being on our doorstep, let’s keep in mind the some important things about Jesus, that we can apply from looking at the people around His birth. In our recent blog series leading up to Christmas, we looked at the three groups of people who participated in and celebrated Jesus’ birth – the wisemen, shepherds and Jesus’ family. In this series, we looked at each of these groups of people with the activity and motion it took for them to welcome and honor Jesus.
In this blog, I’d like for you to consider that Jesus is the culmination of each of these groups of people. To this end, when we think about the wisemen and their journey to find Jesus, we remember that they travelled a great distance, they were led by a star and they brought gifts to Jesus. These men were highly respected for their education - hence the identity, “wisemen.”
In a similar and even more magnificent way, Jesus is our Wiseman. He traveled great distance and time to enter the human race and He is better than a guiding star because He is the Light of the World. Additionally, He is God’s ultimate gift to humanity. Jesus is our Wiseman and He can give you wisdom for any situation, need, difficulty, uncertainty, relationship, decision and ultimately, everything in our lives!
For the next group who celebrated Jesus’ birth, let’s remember the shepherds keeping watch over their sheep at night. To these salt of the earth men, a host of angels made a supernatural visitation and the glory of God shown around these very common shepherds. The angelic announcement put some pep in their step to find the baby laying in a manger, that very night.
Let’s also remember that Jesus tells us that He is our Good Shepherd and we are His sheep – such that we hear and recognize His voice and we flee from the stranger’s voice. I’d also encourage you to read Psalm 23 and put Jesus in the context of being that Shepherd to help you in all the ways that you can read in this Psalm.
Finally, Jesus was born into an earthly family, with Mary as His mom and Joseph as His step-dad, of sorts. Both of these parental units looked after, protected, provided for and assisted Jesus as He grew into His adulthood.
As for us, Jesus is the bridge Who reconciles us into the family of God so that we can identify with the help of Holy Spirit, as God’s sons and daughters. To this end, it’s my prayer for you that during this Christmas season, you have greater awareness and depth of reality to live in the truth that you’re in God’s family with a seat at the table, deeply loved and highly cherished. May God’s ultimate expression of genuine love, Jesus Christ, be the catalyst for your family identity with God as your Father and Jesus as your Good Shepherd and truly Wiseman!