If 2020 had a theme word, it would be Separated. We’ve spent this year social distancing, quarantined, masked in virtual isolation. Now many of us are uttering the old cliche. “ It doesn’t feel like Christmas”.
The great irony of Christmas is that came because of separation. Disconnected from our creator, eternally distanced from Him, mankind found themselves waiting and hoping for light to penetrate the darkness. As the years turned to decades, and centuries morphed into millennia, hope either forged into faith or faded impatiently into loss and disbelief.
Then the Light of the World was wrapped in swaddling cloth as God showed up with an answer to His promises. Jesus said he had came “ to set the captives free”.
This year, many of us are separated from family friends because of covid. Some us are starting to feel like “captives”.
Missing out on those precious special events with those we love, that become Christmas traditions over the years, makes us feel like prisoners . In these times, once again hope wanes in the darkness. Only now, those of us who have Christ, don’t feel alone. We remember these words of Paul.
8We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 2 Corinthians 4
Because of what started that first Christmas, we are no longer separated from Him.
Paul was convinced we couldn’t be.
35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...
37Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8
All because the Light of the World was laid in the manger and grew up. And now more than ever we need to be reminded the Light of the World called those that belong to Him “the light of the world” too. It’s time for us to shine.
May Love and Joy come to you.
Merry Christmas