REPOSSESSION OF THE SOUL

Judges 6:1-40; Luke 22:54-23:12; Psalm 95:1-96:13; Proverbs 14:5-6

“When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he cried out, ‘Oh, Sovereign Lord, I’m doomed! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!’ ‘It is all right,’ the Lord replied. ‘Do not be afraid. You will not die.’”

“So Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Jesus replied, ‘You have said it.’ Pilate turned to the leading priests and to the crowd and said, ‘I find nothing wrong with this man!’”

“Come, let us worship and bow down.  Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care.  If only you would listen to his voice today!”

Today’s Scriptures have nothing to do with Christmas, but amazingly, they tell the Christmas story quite well.

1.     Those who are called by God may, in fact, look upon His face and live (abundantly).

2.      Jesus is the Messiah, the very Son of God, given to us by a loving God.

3.     Come, let us worship. He watches over us; hear His voice calling.

There is no simpler way to say it. There does not need to be. We don’t even have to fully understand what we see and hear. We just have to accept it. So today, let’s just relax and cherish the moment.

Even as I write these words, I am reminded again about my need to rest in the love of the Lord, and how seldom I actually do it. The noise, distractions and obligations of daily life do tend to get in the way, no doubt. But the responsibility for any burnout is mine. I don’t have to allow it. Christmas says I have a choice. There’s an option to give an offering of my time to Christ on a daily basis. Each time I dare to do so, especially when my Blackberry says there’s no time, my soul is freed from a little more worry and insecurity. There’s no obvious explanation for what’s happening. But the truth is, staking out a daily time for Jesus has brought with it unexpected power. A lot of this Spring and Summer’s anxiety is now an unpleasant memory – but that’s all it is! It’s no longer controlling my thoughts or my actions. Allowing the Spirit to speak to and through me on a daily basis has made a lot of other things a little less important, and the things of this world much less significant.

Obviously, Christmas is about Christ; our decision to go to Bethlehem; and our willingness to take time to appreciate, accept and worship what we find there, even if we don’t fully grasp it. It plays out in reshuffled priorities and new and unexpected potential. But simply, it’s about God as a human Baby. Let’s not get so used to the idea that it loses its stunning illogic and unfathomable grace. When we take Christmas for granted and fail to set aside time for Jesus Himself to speak to us through His Spirit, we never quite claim the reality of what it means that God would become one of us to save each of us.

I have tried wearing anxiety. The fit is never flattering. I’m convinced only Christ can evict it from my heart. It’s time to let Him have His way. Christmas is a time to let Jesus repossess our souls. Once the packages are unwrapped, the meal eaten, the football (or basketball) game concluded, and clean up finished, let’s take a few minutes just to stop and claim the freedom from anxiety God offers. As our pastor noted, the first word of Christmas is always, “Fear not!” We can allow a daily Christmas to get inside us, to soften and change us. We can keep on with the same old, same old. The decision is ours. We can put Jesus back in the attic for another year, but we don’t have to. We can choose instead to give Him life, our lives.