“Every good relationship we have is a gift of God's grace"- Tim Lane
" I'm not interested in caring about people" - Ron Swanson
Christmas is weird y’all. It really is. I don’t
know if it has to do with being old and single, or with the fact that no one ever
tells you when you’re parents split up, that holidays can be pretty tough. You
can be more inclined to the feeling of Decking someones Jaws instead of Decking
the Halls. So every year the question is asked “ What would you most like for Christmas?”
and every year the answer is the same. I don’t necessarily care about getting
peppermint bark or Nike Elite Socks, I always just wish that all my friends
could be in the same room. That’s it. If there were some way to make that logistical
nightmare happen it would be pretty sweet. But this wish always whispers of a
deeper longing, because above all else, Christmas is about waiting, and what
the Lord did to fulfill the need of our longing hearts. We know this story, yet
it is always an amazing truth. Fullness of God in helpless babe. Jesus put on
skin. Immanuel. God with us. He came to
make his blessings known, as far as the curse is found. And boy that pokes at
the wound like a redneck poking a dead deer with a stick. As far as the curse
is found, the curse of sin that separated humans from a loving God. You don’t
have to be in a relationship with another human very long to know, the curse is
there, in relationships, and that’s why folks hate Christmas family gatherings..
It’s the grown up equivalent of being forced to eat your vegetables.
We’d much rather throw the baby out with
the bath water and hole up in a shack somewhere in Middle Appalachia where
people can’t bother us. Yet, God is on the move, redeeming relationships is the
business of heaven, and even on this side of the Jordan we stumble upon some
special moments that remind us we need each other. Sitting with a friend who lost
someone they love. Watching two people vow to forever love one another, and
forgive each other when life sucks. Gathering around a table in a tasty donut
shop in Middle Tennessee, laughing so hard you think you might die. We take the
time to write pen pals, make phone calls, pass the pigs, engage in bro-hugs and
cook pancakes for each other because we know at the end of the day, We don’t
deserve each other. We hurt folks we love, we argue, we hide, we avoid, and we
run a million miles in the opposite direction, because the curse still exists. Yet,
Christ walks into the middle of all this filth and fixes it. So we hope. And we
wait.
This past weekend I got to be with some
of my dearest friends. Whenever I’m around them I always find myself wondering
how in the heck I got so lucky. This quote from C.S. Lewis answers it better
than I ever could
“In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I
think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels,
in his secret heart, humbled before the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is
doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company.
Especially when the whole group is together; each bringing out all that is
best, wisest, or funniest in all the others. Those are the golden sessions;
when four or five of us after a hard day's walk have come to our inn; when our
slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze and our drinks are at our
elbows; when the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to
our minds as we talk; and no one has any claim on or any responsibility for
another, but all are freemen and equals as if we had first met an hour ago,
while at the same time an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us. Life —
natural life — has no better gift to give. Who could have deserved it?
An affection mellowed by the years enfolds
us. We have to search for this truth and track it down like the Cowboys of
Coronado (http://cowboysofcoronado.blogspot.com/)
and if we are lucky enough to find it, stay and fight for it. We love one another.
Pray for one another. And goof off. We journey together toward a heavenly city,
whose Architect and Builder is God.
