After all the waiting and pining in the Season of Advent, Christmas is finally here! "I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people!" said the angels to the shepherds in the field. “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-11).” Christmas is a time of joy and celebration. It is a time when we slow down our pace and celebrate what is important to us in life. For many it means spending time with our loved ones – catching up with old friends and visiting our families. Christmas is also a time of merry-making and gift-giving, even if it is just a fleeting moment of happiness. And there is good reason for that because these celebrations touch a deep longing in all of us – a longing to connect; to experience goodness and love in life. Beset with the challenges of the pandemic, this hope that life could be more is felt even more strongly this Christmas. Like the Israelites in exile, the world is looking for deliverance and the way to true freedom and fulfillment, which is why the good news of the angels shines even more brightly this Christmas. The story of Christmas is the story that God has heard our deepest longing and have intervened definitively in human history by sending his one and only Son. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).” John reminds us that this light and life is received through the restoration of our relationship with God the Father - to all who choose to believe in Jesus and receive him, the Father gives them the right to become His children (John 1:12). Our deepest longing can only be satisfied through our intimacy with the Father. Only then can the transformative work of the Spirit be unleashed in us, bringing about the life we long for from the inside out. A life of true joy and fulfillment. So as we await God’s deliverance in the current pandemic, let our hope in Christ neither flicker nor be extinguished. Rather, let us celebrate Christmas with great joy this year. Let us receive the life and light of Christ into our life afresh. And amidst the great darkness that has engulfed our world, let the light of Christ shine in us and through us, as we announce to the world like the angels did on that first Christmas night. “Salvation is near. The Saviour of the world has come!”
Rev. David Lee