When I was a kid, I loved to read books almost more than I loved to breathe air. I could get lost for hours in a good story, and it was always hard for me to put my book down and give my attention to other things.
Somehow I felt like when I walked away, the story was going on without me in there, and I could almost hear the wars raging or the character’s amused voices as they discuss something hilarious. They beckoned to me when I was supposed to be making my bed. They seemed to call to me when I ought to have been doing math homework.
Now I recognize the same struggle in my ten year old daughter. If she ever has two minutes free, she will pick up her book and spend those two minutes enveloped in the world inside. For us, a good story is a present tense deal. Always happening. Always moving.
And, on this Christmas Day it’s important to remember that God’s story, the Truth, is a present tense deal, too. Sure, in a few days we’ll pack up our Christmas decorations and try to get Rudolph out of our heads for the next eleven months. We won’t be thinking so much about Jesus as that sweet baby in the manger.
But, the reality of Immanuel remains: God with us. Not God was with us or God will be with us, but God with us. Here, now, and always. Christmas reminds us of the sacrifice. It reminds us of the sweetness. And, when the Christmas season moves another eleven months away on the calendar, the God of the Universe doesn’t move an inch. He is here. He is alive. He is working.
I am so thankful for that little baby in the manger. For His perfect life. For His horrific death. For His miraculous resurrection. And for the way that He reigns now, on a throne at the right hand of the Father. He is there now, and yet He is here, working in all the details of our lives, reigning in our hearts, and promising that He will never leave or forsake us.
God with us, now and forever.
Merry Christmas.
