On The Last Day Of Christmas My True Love Gave To Me.....

No, it isn't twelve lords a'leaping. It is the man of sorrows.

Here is Jesus, true God from true God, who tells us to take up our cross and follow him, that to gain our life we must lose it, that those who mourn are blessed because they will be comforted. This all just seems like theory until that cross becomes heavier than we can imagine, that the life we thought we were living gets turned upside down, that the comfort in grief is delayed and all we can do is hang on to the promise.

In all the messiness and sin and sorrow of this life, God didn't just wipe the slate clean. He didn't make us all automatons. He became one of us, to live, to suffer, to die and to rise again raising all of life and creation with him. It seems absurd, too much even, but that is love, isn't it? Love is absurd, self giving, lowering oneself to raise the other up, causing suffering to now have meaning, even becoming redemptive.

This is the mystery of the incarnation...the mystery of Christmas.