It's Real

I went to one of those walk-through nativities a couple of weeks ago at a church in the town I grew up in. The folks had done a pretty good job with everything, but I just wasn't feeling it. I'm not sure why, but sometimes it's hard for me to really let my imagination go in places like that, and I was pretty much on guard the whole time. "This isn't real. These people just all live here. I see that kid's tennis shoes." Even for me, a guy who's pretty sappy anyway, especially around Christmas, it just wasn't happening. Then, at one point, we were in one the "shops" and all these kids came running in.

"It's happened!" "He's here!" "Come quickly and see!" Of course, they were announcing the birth of Christ. I don't know what it was about it, but when they ran in and started yelling at us, their excitment seemed so genuine and so real, that my hard heart softened a little bit, and I found myself getting caught up in the moment. I wanted to run to the manger with them to see what was going on. Then, as I was walking out, one of the little kids said to me, "It's so exciting, sir, hope is here!" And that's when the tears welled up in my eyes, because he was exactly right. Hope was here.

Here's the thing: as I've thought about that night, I've been struck at how my heart compelled me to run to the manger to see Jesus. Sometimes I wonder, and especially this year I've wondered, if my heart is becoming too hardened to Christ. I worry sometimes that I could get to the point where I would just go my own way, and like Pilate, no matter how much of Christ I see, I would reject him as the Messiah. And yet, there I was, longing to run and see Jesus, reminded again that it is he who draws me to himself, and that it is nothing that I do or feelings I conjur up that keeps me close.

As I come to the end of this year, I find myself wondering and asking, more than I ever have before in my life, will things ever really change? I wrestle more, at thirty, with the reality that there are sins I've been struggling with as long as I can remember, and they don't seem to be getting "better," and I wonder if I'll still be struggling with them at forty, fifty, and beyond. I have friends whose end to 2008 looks very different than the beginning did, and I struggle with whether it's just simplistic idealism to believe that 2009 could bring real change, real peace, and real victory in their lives. And then, a little boy, in the midst of a little re-enactment, reminds me that with every new observance of Christ's birth comes a fresh wave of hope, and I realize that the questions and thoughts I'm having are outdated. They belong to the mind of someone who lived before Christ was born, because with the coming of God in human flesh, the answer to all my questions about the potential for overcoming my own sins, and the potential for peace and change in the lives of those around me is "yes." With Christ here I no longer need to wonder if change is possible, if peace can be found, if sin can be defeated, because with Christ here it's no longer a question of if but when.

The really amazing thing about waiting for that hope, is that we don't wait alone, because the last phrase of that little boy's sentence was "is here." Christ, the one that brings hope, also brought himself to be with me while I wait for the realization of that hope. The change and peace that I plead with God for in the lives of my friends, may not come in 2009. I may not wake up on January 1, and be instantly freed from some of these sins I've grown so weary of dealing with year after year, but the "is here" part of that sentence lets me know that Christ isn't going anywhere in the midst of all that. He will carry me through this, if I'll just run to him, like I wanted to that night. I guess this is one time I really do need to keep running, straight to the manger because, "It's so exciting. . . hope is here."