A Glorious Perspective

When tasked to write something for the powerful #becomingabiblenerd blog about Christmas, for a while I was stumped. I just sat in front of a blank Word document, attempting to find the extravagant words to teach, enlighten, and encourage those that may be reading. In my failed attempts to try, I ended up coming woefully short of something truly inspiring. After some thinking, however, I have decided to retreat to simplicity. A respite from the abstract and profound and found myself writing the words below out of pure, honest reflection over the most wonderful time of the year. Ultimately, it encompasses three different ways I have been thinking about the Christmas story, and how it puts on full display the nature of God. In no particular order, I have been pondering on questions of time, space, and gratitude, and how they weave themselves inward and outward upon this Christmas season.

TIME During the holiday season of 2017, popular worship artist Hillsong Worship released a song that has been buried in my brain now for five years. As a musician myself, I was floored by the writing prowess of this new guy named Benjamin Hastings. One song featured on the album was called “Seasons.” It’s written like a psalm and plays like a counseling session, assuredly to make you cry and rethink all you thought you knew about the Christmas story. Also, the homeboy straight up rhymes the word “loyal” with “sequoia.” Absolutely mindboggling. Anyways, at the song’s apex, a line strikes one breathless. It says, “For all I know of seasons is that You take Your time. You could have saved us in a second, instead, You sent a Child.” It’s been stuck with me ever since.

The history of humanity has been a history of people attempting to understand the passage of time. When will the rain come? When will the tide change? When will progress happen? Impatience is our default. Knowing this, God, even though He is all-powerful and could have redeemed us with a snap of his fingers, wisely chose to send a child. The salvation process took 33-36 years. The relieving of Christ’s spirit from the cross happened in a moment, but the process of our redemption began over three decades before that moment. It’s a humbling reminder that time is God’s to take, and patience, that virtue we warn to pray for, is a quality God does not need, for time is his and his alone. This Christmas season, whether you’re praying for a wayward son or daughter, for a place to finally belong, or for a season that is less like winter and more like summer, know that patience is intertwined with God’s purpose, His good pleasing and perfect will.

SPACE Since the dawn of human religion, people have been looking to the heavens for guidance. Cosmologists of ancient Sumer and Egypt calculated time into calendars based on collections of stars in the sky. Vikings used constellations to guide them to a new world. Astrology today provides people with an explanation for the way their personalities work based on their zodiac signs. In this grand tapestry of space and stars, people focus on how the stars collectively form signs and symbols. This is completely different from the Magi of the Christmas narrative. The word “Magi” means “wise men” and comes from the Zoroastrian tradition, an Iranian-based religion that was, again, based on how the stars collectively mapped out human history. These Magi, however, chose a different method. Rather than viewing the stars as a collective whole, showcasing the whole of human history and time, they instead focused on just one. Marked with a mission, the wise men traveled across the Iranian desert to Bethlehem, following a star simply called “his star” in Matthew 2:2. There, they offered him the finest treasures they had, bestowing upon the then probably 3- to 4-year-old gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matt. 2:11).

As we enter this season of reverence to our newborn king, we are in a vastly different theological scenario. Our gods typically are ourselves, influenced by political figures, social media celebrities, and podcast hosts (assuredly, this podcast points to another Star than themselves). Like the Magi, there is an increasing demand to cast aside the stars and to focus on just the one, bright, Son. A play on words that’s overplayed and cliché, I know. But, to the Magi, laying down their stars to follow just one left them face to face with Emmanuel, the God with us.

GRATITUDE Recently, a professor asked me a question that has profoundly impacted the way I think about my religious life. He asked me, “What does the Holy Spirit feel like?” It was equal parts scholarly inquisition, attempting to parcel out the nuggets to put in his next project, and genuine interest. After pausing a moment, I told him, “It feels different during different phases of faith. Sometimes it’s a still small voice, sometimes it’s a powerful knee-bending weight, but recently, it has been an overwhelming sense of gratitude.” I imagined leading worship during Easter, when our church hosted 2,000 members at a local venue. I looked out and saw the families, friends, and mentors that have had a profound impact on my life. We sang a popular worship song, proudly saying “may His favor be upon you and a thousand generations…may His presence go before you…in your weeping and rejoicing, He is for you…” In that holy moment, I wept. The Holy Spirit, in that moment, tore the curtains that constantly blind me with oversight, and I was left broken in a moment of simple, honest, gratitude.

I’ve recently, in this Spirit, developed a new definition of gratitude. It is the realization of that which is usually taken for granted. The mother and father that have given their life so I can have mine. The friends that graciously deal with me and my shortcomings day after day. The church that provided me a space and time to dance, sing, speak, grow, and pastor. In this season of Christmas, undoubtedly planned to happen after our American “Thanksgiving,” take in the glory of what you take for granted. The warmth of a fire, the laughter of your family members, the hug from your friends, the counsel from your mentor, the visit from those loved ones whom you haven’t spoken to for far too long. The Word beautifully promises us that “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matt. 18:20). Emmanuel was born in a feeding trough a couple thousand years ago in human form, carrying the burden of the flesh himself when we were too weak to carry it on our own. His Holy Spirit, however, that wonderous continuation of that faithful holy night, is surely among us in every divine second. Most of the time, the things we take for granted outweigh the things we truly take time to cherish. In this beautiful cosmic circumstance of space and time that we find ourselves in, surrounded by the people we love, do not spend time looking up above or the clock’s ticking towards doom, but on the Holy Spirit’s divine providence in the miniscule, the might, the moments of overwhelming, simple, gratitude.

It is, indeed, a very Merry Christmas.