We're all watching the weather reports right now. Significant storm heading our way just in time for Christmas weekend. Thursday through Sunday.
Yikes!
They're using the phrases like "flash freeze" and "blizzard". They are reminding us of how to put together an emergency kit with water and flashlights and food and stuff.
They are asking us to "consider altering plans through the holiday weekend as travel conditions may become dangerous."
Altering plans?! That's a problem. I have plans.
Most of us do. Family meals, Christmas concerts, candlelight services. Probably all of these involve driving somewhere.
I find myself checking Environment Canada's website several times throughout the day. Just to see if there are any updates, any new projections that might see the storm veer away.
Because....we have plans.
Then again, so many dear people I love well are not having the Christmas they planned for. And it has nothing to do with the weather. It has to do with storms that fiercely blasted in at various times through this whole tumultuous year. Evictions and diagnoses and illness and treatments -- and death. So many folks having that dreaded "first Christmas since." Or new stuff just now in December, piling on to all that came before.
The kind of Christmas you can't really plan for. Nobody plans for. Nobody wants.
The irony of it is this. It's exactly these kinds of Christmases, the ones that feel all awful and chaotic and unplanned for, that best reflect the very first time anything to do with Christmas was ever introduced on the planet.
Having a daughter pregnant before she was properly married was not in the plans for Mary's parents.
Having a fiancee tell him something quite unbelievable was not in the plans for Joseph.
Traveling pregnant was definitely not in Mary's plans (or for any mom-to-be for that matter).
And you can bet no birth plan ever crafted included a cattle shed delivery and a feeding tough bassinet.
So the picture we have in our heads of that perfect, well-planned-out Christmas? Not in the Bible. The shimmering gold and lights against the snowy backdrop? Not in the original screenplay. The part where everything you want comes true "this Christmas"? Nope.
Except. Actually. That is the plan. Eventually.
We don't read from Revelation very often at Christmastime. Maybe we should.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea [often representing turmoil, danger and chaos]
...And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them. [Immanuel = God with us.]
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. [God's longing all throughout Scripture is to be WITH us.]
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain,[sounds like a good Christmas plan to me], for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Revelation 19:1-4
With a nod to John Lennon (which is appropriate given our Let It Be Christmas theme at Highview), I might suggest that Christmas is what happens while you're busy making plans.
And with the threat of everything we've planned being thwarted by a storm, it's clearer that Christmas is actually about hope and tenacity and fierce faith
-- and welcoming God to be with us exactly where we are.
So hunker down beloveds. Get ready for the storm coming this weekend. Plan to give yourself space to heal from the storms of this past year. Plan to love the people you're with. Plan some grace where it's badly needed. Stay safe. Stay quiet if need be. Make those plans.
And maybe....plan for an encounter with God that has nothing to do with anything pretty and sweet, necessarily.
Or maybe that will come to you in ways you didn't plan on.
I hope so.
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