Santa has a lot of territory to cover. So when our son Connor was a toddler, Santa came to our house on Christmas Eve. Somehow Santa always came by and left some goodies under the tree while we were at the 5:30 Children’s and Family service. This meant that we were on a tight time schedule that was carefully crafted.

One year, I asked our older children, Kyle and Karmen, to stay back and finish up the dessert preparations before they joined us for the 5:30 service. All they really needed to do was to make the raspberry sauce in the blender. They had both worked in restaurants and I knew they would do a good job on the sauce. Except that the lid on the blender was loose. And so they ended up with raspberry sauce all over the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the backsplash, and themselves.

That was more than 20 years ago now. But we still laugh about it. And it is a good reminder to me that things just fall apart sometimes. Especially during the holidays. The best laid plans often fall apart. So much else can go wrong. A family member ends up in the hospital just before Christmas. A loved one passes away and is not there in his or her customary seat at the annual celebration. An argument within the family leaves folks feeling bruised and hurt.

Which is why I love the gospels’ stories of Jesus’ birth so much. Both Luke and Matthew tell us that things did not go according to plan. Luke tells us that Mary was startled when the pink line turned blue on the pregnancy test, “how can this be since I have no husband?” Matthew tells us that King Herod is out to kill the newborn king and so both the wise men and Jospeh try to evade his murderous rage by sneaking around to find safe passage. Mary and Joseph had to place Jesus in a feed trough instead of a crib because there was no Pottery Barn nursery in sight.

The gospel of John tells the Christmas story like this: “And the word became flesh and lived among us.” And John reminds us that though Jesus came directly into the mess of real human life, “the world did not know him.” God, the holy one, comes with love into the messes of our own lives.

Grace and Peace,
Carla
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