A Telling Response

Last week Graeme was telling us about the way God’s solutions are commonly surprising to us. God doesn’t follow our logic is relation to power, peace, hope or salvation. The ultimate surprise is told in the Christmas story. God sent his son as a human baby, that he would call shepherds, the poorest of the poor, to the manger side and wise men with expensive gifts to a simple home, and expect that they would recognise the truth.

It is Matthew who tells the story of the wise men and Luke who tell of the shepherds. They are completely different stories told for very different reasons. Matthew is trying to demonstrate that Jesus is the fulfilment of Old Testament prophesy and the hopes of God’s people. Luke wants us to know that Jesus comes as the saviour of the world. For him Jesus comes to call and to save everyone.

It is interesting that at the end of Matthew’s story the wise men go home secretly to protect the child from Herod, while in Luke the shepherds leave, telling everyone what they have seen and heard. I think that largely that is the point of his story. When people see something that is surprising the natural response is to tell someone, if not everyone they meet.

This year Christmas Day had one surprising event that everyone is talking about. How did you and your home cope with the hail and the rain? Everyone has a story to tell and part of our dealing with the surprise and the shock, is to tell it.

For most of us there are presents on Christmas Day which either surprise us with joy or disappointment and we either show and tell everyone, or we complain to those very, very close to us. In either case the surprise leads to telling.

The storm was so overwhelming that it may have diminished all other surprises, but Christmas this year had its own set of satisfying and surprising events. Let’s not let other things cause us to forget to share that which has deeper meaning for us.

Wasn’t Christmas Eve on the lawn fantastic! It was a real family Christmas event with the true meaning of Christmas well expressed.

Those who were at the 11pm service reflected on the birth of Jesus in an Australian Farming context. Not as exciting as the earlier event, but quite meaningful, and it was great to share communion in that atmosphere.

And then there was Christmas morning. An overflowing building and a great celebration of the surprising birth of Jesus.

There were other things I was surprised by over this Christmas as well. What about you? Maybe you could take the opportunity to share them with me or someone else.

I sometimes wonder why we are quick to share what is happening in our families, or the dramas around the workplace, or what is happening at the cricket (always surprising), or the weather, but are more reluctant to tell someone that we really enjoyed going to church at Christmas, or that we saw God’s love at work, or that God gave us a real sense of his presence, even when these experiences were just as surprising.
Maybe this could be something we work on in 2012; to seek ways to naturally include God’s surprising actions in our lives, into our conversations more often.