Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Your Kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10

Each Christmas I imagine Mary and Joseph looking down at baby Jesus wondering what he will look like as he ages, what will he be interested in, how God will use him. But it doesn’t stop there. I inevitably fast forward to 33 years later when that baby has become a man and willingly walks toward his own execution so that I and everyone else who believes in him can live. It’s just so much weight being placed on the shoulders of a child. So for me, Christmas is always a little bittersweet.

What helps me is to remember who we are praying to when we recite the Lord’s prayer. When we pray this part of the Lord’s prayer we are looking toward the day when God’s reign and rule will be fully expressed on Earth. We are praying to the living God, the resurrected Jesus. The God who came into this world as baby, lived for 33 years, willingly died, and was resurrected so that we might have life.

Amen.