I just returned from JOY’s annual trip to the Show Palace Dinner Theater in Hudson, Florida. The show was great as usual, and it was wonderful to share fellowship with brothers and sisters from JOY! (Thanks to John for arranging these trips!) There was one thing that bothered me. The second half of the show was staged at the manger in Bethlehem. Every Shepherd’s outfit was washed, pressed and starched. The barn was clean as a whistle. Mary is calm and blissfully happy. Joseph stood by quiet and adoring. It’s all perfect. Everything is pristine, dignified, buttoned down, lovely, or, in my opinion, completely wrong.
I can’t believe it looked like that. My imagination runs more to Albrecht Altdorfer’s 1513 painting of the Nativity. Jesus comes into our world just as He finds it. No perfection is needed. We say, “Come, Lord Jesus” – not into the perfect Christmas scene but into our messy and chaotic lives. Come, Lord Jesus into our loneliness and despair, come into our depression and anxiety, come into our sadness for loved ones no longer here, come into holidays which only highlight the brokenness in us and our relationships, come into our chronic illness, into our progressive illness, into our terminal illness, come to our poverty, our fears for the future, our regrets for the past. Come into our war-torn world, into our divided politics, into our natural and man-made disasters. Come Lord Jesus, into whatever darkness we find in our lives and the lives of our neighbors. And Jesus does come.
Advent is a time to get ready. But not to make everything perfectly decorated, pristine and ready, it’s a time to make ourselves ready. We get ready to receive our Savior when we need Him most and perhaps expect Him least. We stay ready to let Jesus come to others through us, love with skin on, bringing Jesus into our own messy lives and into the lives of our neighbors and relatives. We get ready, so when grace rains down all around us, we are careful not to put our umbrella up. We get ready, so we can turn around from the darkness and see that the light is there, still there, always there. That light is the love of God who loves you UNCONDITIONALLY and is always there seeking you, no matter what. I wish you God’s peace this Christmas 

Mike
Read John 1:1-18 for a Nativity story which overcomes all darkness: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A1-18&version=NRSV