Advent
Meditation
December
24th
32.
Into Waiting
Matt
2:21-23
So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land
of Israel . But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in
place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned
in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and
lived in a town called Nazareth .
We
are almost there. Tomorrow is Christmas Day. For a large percentage
of the population it will be a day of presents, large amounts of food
and drink, possibly too much TV and, for some, parties into the night.
There will be a tiny minority who will totally ignore the day, but in
the middle of these two groups will be those of us who want to appreciate
the day in the traditional way with Christmas lunch and so on, but who
also want to hold onto the truth and wonder if what we believe, according
to the Bible, took place on this day slightly more than 2000 years ago.
For Christians it's always an odd sort of day, trying to balance these
things, but then the Christmas story is an odd sort of story.
We've
seen over these past weeks that it's all about God communicating with
ordinary people and doing extraordinary things with them, as He brings
His Son onto the earth. We've commented on how it's so easy to become
over familiar with the story and lose the wonder of what was happening.
It's a story of angels and of miracles of conception, of movement around
the country at the whim of an emperor, and then out of the country by
the guidance of God. Yes, we saw all the preamble, the birth, the shepherds,
the wise men, the welcoming team in the temple and the flight to Egypt.
It's
like we've come to the closing scene of an epic film. All the big events
have happened and now it's anti-climax at the end. If you saw the Lord
of the Rings films, you may remember at the end of the first film, after
all the fighting, the hero and his helper slip quietly away in a little
boat. After all the things that had gone before, it's now a quiet, low-key
ending but we all knew there was lots more to come! That's how it
is at the end of what we refer to as The Christmas Story'.
Joseph's
had his dream with an angel and starts to take the little family home.
When he gets back to Israel
he hears that the Herod dynasty still continues and so keeps on going,
back up north to Galilee,
to Nazareth.
There's mention of a dream whether it's the original one saying go
home, or another one, is not clear. The fact is they reach home in the
north and that's where they settle. For us, in a few days time, Christmas
and all its activities will be a past memory, and we look forward to
just getting back on with life after the holidays, back to normality.
That's possibly how it was with Mary and Joseph. The great adventure,
all the travelling, has come to an end, and so now they can settle down
to normal life as a family. That's how it will be for twelve years,
until Jesus gives his mother cause to wonder some more (see Lk 2:41-52).
It will be about thirty years before it all really starts to happen
and until then it's just a time of waiting, although they might not
have been very sure about that. But that's how life with God is: exciting
one day, unsure the next.
Well,
the waiting is almost at an end; tomorrow is Christmas Day, but there
may be other things you've been waiting for, possibly for a long time.
How can we make the waiting easier? To remind ourselves that God is
there working out His purposes in perfect precision which often means
slowly and so the call on us is to remain faithful to the revelation
we've had so far, and to watch and wait. Have a good Christmas Day tomorrow,
then go on watching and waiting until He comes with the next phase!
If
you wish to e-mail us any comment on this meditation please click here
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tony.thomas@rochfordcc.co.uk
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