Christmas 1a - conclusion

Isaiah 63:7–9; Psalm 148; Hebrews 2:10–18; Matthew 2:13–23

Some people welcome the temperature turning to a more “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” albeit the Texas version. I much prefer the Corona commercial of Feliz Navidad with palm trees waving in a warm breeze. Granted the sense of the season seems to be wholly winter wonderland where the more familiar hymns and songs are “frosty winds made moan.” (In the Bleak Mid-winter) But I’ve been there and for all the esthetic beauty of snow topped trees it is freezing cold, difficult to get around in and makes for one h-e-double hockey sticks of a mess when all that snow starts to melt. The texts for Christmas 1a ask us to enter the mess of the world while the lights of the Christmas still burn brightly. Isaiah declares the gracious deeds of the Lord in response to all the distress of the people. The whole world and then some declares the praise of God because of the horn raised up remembers people abandoned who are God’s own. The Christ comes to share our sufferings, inhabit our flesh and die our death to free those held in slavery by the fear of death. And the Gospel’s answer to Rachel’s weeping is for God to live the lament and through the cross and resurrection still the sound of sorrow once and for all. Feliz Navidad.