I listened again to The Holly and the Ivy, and this time it really got to me. It brought tears to my eyes.
I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of weeping willie, although it has always been my way not to withhold tears from those to whom tears are due. If you can’t be stirred by the beauty of holiness in Jesus Christ… well, I don’t know.
Tears of joy are a small tribute to pay to Christmas–the day we have chosen, by custom, to celebrate the Incarnation, the word made flesh, our salvation. Those are very large gifts. And along with them, we receive love, family, sweet memories, and hope.
This is an evil age we’re living in, and we need to know that our God has not forgotten us. That’s what the carol was telling me. It took a few hours to sink in.
God is nigh. That is the lesson. He is never farther than a prayer away, and sometimes even closer than that.
My aunt, the last of my family in her generation, is now in a safe place which has already done her lots of good. And just in time for Christmas, too. This was a gift, and I am thankful for it. Not the first gift I have ever received from my God, and surely not the last. So I give thanks for Christmas, for Jesus Christ coming down from heaven and into the world, where I am. And for all the other gifts that go with it.
Amen! And although I am certainly not a Bible scholar, according to the Book of Luke, Zacharias and Elizabeth conceived John the Baptist in June; upon the conception of Jesus 6 months later Mary went to see Elizabeth. John leapt in his mother’s womb at the presence of Our Lord. So we may rightly say that Our Savior began dwelling with man in December even though His actual birth was supposedly sometime in September. This was a puzzle to me until a few years ago when I read a study on it. And, yes, He surely does answer prayer and bestow many gifts upon His children, salvation and grace chief among them.
The way I look at it is, if it were important for us to know the exact day of Christ’s birth, the Bible would have recorded it. God has left gaps in our knowledge to be filled by faith and love.
Precisely! But He did leave us a few breadcrumbs 😉
Blessed be our Lord, God, Almighty!