The tree is lit with hundreds upon hundreds of lights. The familiar Christmas CDs are playing through the stereo. The turkey dinner is done, dishes washed and put away, family gone and candlelit church service ended. All that is left to do is to have family devotions, sing some Christmas carols, hang our stockings and crawl between the sheets.
Christmas is riddled with traditions; it's famous for them. Here in my 20s, I'm faced with the challenge of keeping Christmas and all of it's traditions fresh, new and full of meaning, rather than mundane, old and dull. Pastor Steve spoke of this on Sunday, explaining how it can be challenging to present the Christmas story in such a way that it will strike the congregation with fresh force.
Tonight, he spoke of the indescribable gift. Indescribable. In. describ. able. No words. Nothing but a glimpse, a brief overview, a slight thought at the immensity, the extreme power, the soul-shaking awe and the earth-shattering truth of God, Elohim, Yahweh, Jehovah-Nissi, Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the Lord of Angel Armies, Emmanuel, taking on the form of a human baby and being born in a smelly, old stable. Indescribable.
I'm a nostalgic soul and I try to live more in the past than the present. With the aid of the ever-extensive internet, I found a YouTube video of a man reading the children's story, "The Legend of the Candy Cane", tonight. It tells the story of the symbolism found within this seasonal peppermint candy - how it's in the shape of a J for Jesus, or a shepherd's staff to remember the lowly shepherds who first heard the glorious news of God's birth from a band of singing angels in the dead of night. It tells of the colours of the candy cane - the red and the white - relating the horror of Jesus' blood that was brutally beaten from Him when He sacrificed Himself and took on the death penalty that was meant for us - for you -, and the complete cleanliness of the soul that is wiped of all sinful stains when we believe in Him.
Indescribable - how the King of the universe, the One who holds the galaxies in balance and causes the instinct of marching ants, abandoned the glory of heaven's magnificent throne room and lived amongst us. Indescribable - how Jesus would give His life for humans...no more than maggots in our sin. Indescribable - the power and victory, glory and rejoicing of His resurrection! Indescribable!
Indescribable - how it can somehow become so ordinary, with every word memorized and every meaningful tradition simply lived through. Indescribable. HE is truly indescribable. The magic of this night, of tomorrow's Christmas Day, is truly indescribable.
