Tis The Season

So, it's Christmas Eve and for the past few weeks, I've been diving into some super amazing scripture about prophecy and real life grace.  It's always a bit overwhelming, but I have so been trying to soak in the Christmas story.  Tis the season, right BBs?

I completely long to not miss this important day!!  And then it hit me like a big ole ton of bricks.  I began to really see the story of grace that is laid before us with the birth of Christ.

BBs, Can I just want to talk just one hot minute about the five women in Jesus's lineage? Sometimes they are lost amongst the sheep and the angels singing and whatnot.  Open your Bible up to Matthew 1 and try not to be bored senseless through the endless naming of all these peeps.  But, please don't miss these five women.

Now I'm guessing you are in one of two camps.  Camp one is all like, "Look, little BBs, we totes know all about these women and why they are listed and all the whatnots."  And camp two is more like, "You lost me at Matthew 1:2."

Whichever camp you are in, bear with me just for a few hundred shakes of a lamb's tail.  Not too long ago at Easter, I wrote about wanting to be a "Mary."  Here's the deal.  

Some days I'm all like Mary Magdalene throwing my crayola demons aside to follow my Savior.  Sometimes I'm like the Mary that poured sweet perfume on Jesus's feet.  And even sometimes I'm like His momma, Mary, that quietly supported her son and savior to the death.

Reality hits, however, each Christmas.  And I realize that I'm less like a Mary and more like these fools listed in Matthew. I read these names in this long line of decedents of our Immanuel.  

First up... Tamar.  I read of her vial deceit... pretending to be a prostitute and sleeping with her FIL just to gain an inheritance.  Goodness, I'd never be like her!

I move on to Rahab.  Well, more prostitution going around.  More difficult convos with the kiddos about this woman as we read through the women listed in Jesus's genealogy.  She is all about selling things she just need not sell to make this whole story PG.

Then there's Bathsheba.  She makes me super mad.  Mostly because of David.  I mean, come on, dude, get your crapola together.  You're stinking awesome and then you have to go and pull this R rated nonsense with this hot chick flaunting around in a bathtub.

Now Ruth, I adore.  She is more like it, right?  But in reality, she is somewhat foolish with her loyalty and fervor.  She is super duper determined and sometimes even brazen for a non-important widower with no real rights.  I'm guessing she shook up the town square with her determination.

And finally, we have Mary.  She is a quiet one, isn't she?  I mean, sheesh.  She gives birth to a king and has to manage a family with this little precious Savior running around.  She is to be adored, right?  

And I look at these women and I realize that it's not about some grading scale of how good they are.  It's not about all the "wrongs" lining up with all of the "rights."  These women are a big ole hot mess that have been deep fried in coo coo for cocoa puffs.  They are broken... just like ME!  So what's it all about?

It's about grace.

This season, we bow on our scarred up and unworthy knees at the foot of an infant Savior. 

We are given a King... an eternal King that humbles himself by entering this undeserving world as a tiny baby in a nasty ole stable.

We are Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba and it doesn't even matter.  Not only did he come here for us, he listed us quite proudly in his lineage. 

You see, he takes our broken mess and makes it beautiful.  He has since the world began, and He still is today. It's not that He doesn't care that we are a bunch fo mess ups.  Goodness knows we break his heart daily... perhaps hourly or more.  But He loves us THAT much.  

He loves us enough to make our broken mess beautiful.  And He loves us enough to dwell among us.  

Let this Christmas be a reminder that the Immanuel is here.  

Immanuel.  God with us.

Plain and simple.  

Not "God with us" if we do these great things.

Not "God with us" if we don't screw up.

Not "God with us" if we are good enough.

Us.  The prostitute and the priest.  The housewife and the day laborer.  The American and the Arab.  The broken and the beautiful. 

God with us.

Immanuel.

So beautifully and simply.  God with us.  

“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).”

Matthew 1:23 NIV