5th December
Dinner Interrupted
When I was 12, dinner was interrupted by a ceiling.
We were in the dining room, when a crack began appearing above our heads.
Long story short, we moved the table further down the room, and carried on eating, while the ceiling crashed into the space where the table had been.
Dinner was interrupted – or was it?
The ‘dinner experience’ was certainly interrupted. We had to pick up the heavy, food-laden table, and move it (not easy).
But dinner itself remained the same. I can’t say our food was interrupted.
Perhaps some of us feel as though our ‘Christmas experience’ this year is interrupted. Changes in circumstances, difficult times, things are not where we’d really like them to be.
Let’s remember, within that, that Christmas remains the same. However much change goes on around us, and in us, the essentials don’t change:
Jesus came at Christmas, to be our Saviour.
…the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 1 John 4:14b
The world Jesus came into was probably similar to our own in many ways. It knew unrest. It knew struggle. It knew disappointment.
And it was into those situations that Jesus came - still comes - as Emmanuel, God with us. He’s with us in the messy times as well as the good times.
Whatever Christmas looks like for you this year, remember that Jesus came for you.
The essentials don’t change.
For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 NLT
