Have we ever consider the boldness of Christmas? For to craft such a daring story and to do so in a manner that it is sufficiently sturdy to stand up under the relentless scrutiny that is certain to be brought to bear against such a story is boldness indeed. And when God pens a story He does so not fearing scrutiny, but inviting as much of it as any one of us can muster up, for God does nothing that is not bold. Such is God and such is Christmas.

If I can’t find something worthwhile in my own reflection, how am I ever going to see anything worthwhile in the face of another? Maybe I can solve all of this by seeing the face of Jesus in everyone, starting with myself.

It was at the point where I was convinced of my own death that God finally convinced me of His life. And I stand amazed that my death birthed His life.

Every gift that we will ever receive, bar one, will die ‘with us.’ The only gift that died ‘for us’ so that nothing ever need die ‘with us’ is the gift that God handed us on Christmas. And as for me, I done with all the dying.

To embrace God does not involve some complex formula of endless dictates or the embracing of a rule mongering tyrant with a forever list of expectations. It simply involves saying “yes” to the gift of Christmas and “no” to every lesser gift simply because every other gift is lesser. And how simple is that?

Christmas is the beginning of a wonderfully tumultuous story of God coming on tip-toe in order to turn the world on it’s head.

To be rescued rather painfully points out the fact that we don’t have the resources to rescue ourselves. Thanks to the stubbornness of our stale pride we choose to refuse rescue and embrace anguish, which means that the greatest thing that we need to be rescued from is ourselves.

The greatest joy is not finding something that we’ve been looking for. The greatest joy is when we’d given up on ever finding it and then it found us.

I don’t have it within me to do what God does for me. That’s why he’s God and I’m not.