This time of year everything is magnified.
All of the year seems to come to a head.
The good done.
The bad that still exists.
The ugliness of consumerism.
The beautiful idea of gifts given with no strings attached.
(Is that possible? Can a gift really be a gift? Can we, who thrive within a system of reward and punishment, truly understand grace?)
This Christmas, It would be good to acknowledge that I have no love outside of the love of God in me.
My attempts are always rooted in self-gratification.
There are no naturally pure motives.
I cannot give without wanting to be given back to in return, or to have people see my gift and think I am a good person.
I cannot love without desiring that person to make me feel good, to fulfill my emotions, to boost my ego.
I cannot even write without wanting people to read these words and think of me as spiritual and humble.
The truth is, I am selfish to the core.
I look out for number one.
I see myself as apart from others, as capable of creating my own world around myself.
Me, left to my own doing, will destroy myself.
There is no love in me.
…………………wait………………………..
It doesn’t stop there……….
The tables have been turned.
I am not left alone to destroy myself.
By an insane grace I cannot even begin to express through my writing,
I have been saved,
from myself.
from the wretched and lonely idea I have to make it on my own.
from the disgusting belief disguised as religious piety that I can somehow conjure up some kind of love, some kind of godliness.
And that, that is my new reality.
At times I feel split, a regular Jekyll and Hyde.
Image by Jean-Thomas Louvier
How could I taste such Pure Love one moment and such bitter humanness the next?
How could a vessel so filthy be filled with a Spirit so pure?
I know myself, I know my motives, I know my deep dark hidden thoughts.
(But they are known greater by Someone greater.)
This christmas, it would do me good to remember there is nothing good in me apart from Christ,
but I am not apart from Him.
That’s where the story continues.
It doesn’t stop in my own pain, my own grossness.
It isn’t the truth because maybe you are impressed I am being this self-deprecating, this vulnerable.
(Even that can be another boost to my ego. Ewww.)
It doesn’t end at a realization of my own poverty.
I can’t just believe God to be everything and me nothing, it can’t end there.
Or I will stay in the gutter.
I’ll never be the person God made me to be.
I’ll never be Jesus to the world.
You see, the end of the story matters just as much as the beginning.
Part A:
I once was lost.
I once was blind.
Part B:
But now I am found.
But now I see.
This is the grand paradox, the tension we all live within.
We come from dust and return to dust.
We are poor, filthy, wretched beings,
and somehow
We are light,
We are glorious eternal creatures.
We are unstoppable, indescribable beauty.
Because
He came.
He walked.
He loved.
He died.
He lives in us.
So we could realize our nothingness in ourselves and our everythingness in Him.
This is it.
This is my story.
This is my song.
This is Christmas.
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