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Transcript

Essay 26 - Hope For The Future

A message for Christmas

So this is how it starts...

Darkness that God could breathe the stars into; that would later guide wisemen to his human heartbeat.

But first - waiting.

And painfulness

And a journey, that no one ever feels at home in. Lost somewhere between here and there. Where struggles always nip at your heels. Where broken hearts and frustrations sit just underneath the surface of everyday living.

So this is where it starts-  So many promises, and so much waiting; and then an odd story. Of a young woman, and gods favor, and the word becoming flesh. Strangeness.

But it’s a story for a time such as those- and for times like these. Times when our earthly solutions are stumbling. When empires and superpowers seem to be wandering. When politicians have few answers. When darkness seems to be closing in around everything. When shouting about our “rightness” is everywhere, even while those that shout the loudest live in the lurking shadows of the wrong. When evil is the only headline and when the people in the margins are hurting, and broken and at the end of their ropes.

But a voice starts calling out- “when you’re at the end of your rope it’s just where god wants you”. This man who was born in obscurity, the god man, the word in flesh, says he has come to save us from the collapsing world around us. He  holds out his hands and says to society’s worst offenders- “If you’re broken and wounded, I’m here for you. If you’re a mess, and your life is on the edges- come as you are and I’ll write forgiveness on your life even while your accusers stand on the ready with their stones. I will transcend your earthly trials and troubles- I Am your redeemer, I am a friend to sinners, I am your friend, sinner. I am all these things because I Am. “

On that mysterious night in a forgotten suburb of the city of the powerful- a town on the wrong side of the tracks- comes a cry of a baby; that in time would start to speak hope to people, to you and to me.

The voice that would challenge the empires, call to account the authorities.  It is a voice that will Flummox the religious men in their robes and frustrate those now in their suits -it will breathe breath into the lifeless, and hold close, the ones who have lost all hope that god has interest in them.

So he came for us - In our frenzied seasons, in our tired pursuits, to buy back all the darkness and trouble we’ve bought that society sells us- to show those that he created, His love is all that matters. That no cleaning up, fixing up, living up or showing up can change his love for the ones he made. That little cry in a manger made of wood became a cry from shoulders full of splinters that were hung on a cross. It is a cry that would break the barrier between god and man - completely.

He came for the broken person on the side of the road - who’s been crushed by the weight of this heavy world. He came for the person who the theologians have passed over, for the one who the righteous hypocrites have looked past. He does not walk past, he does not ignore us for how we look or act, he knows that this world has hurt us and so he stops on the side of the road and puts us on his back to heal us -

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