For many, Christmas is a day which is carefully choreographed. You know exactly where you’ll be at all hours of the day, who you’ll spend the time with, and what you’ll be doing. The presents are arranged under the tree just so; the ornaments are picture perfect. The dinner menu is set in stone, and everyone knows what they’re responsible for bringing. Spontaneity has its time and place, but not on Christmas Day—on this day, everything needs to go according to plan.
Yet when you think about the first Christmas, it is a story full of changed plans. Joseph and Mary planned to get married and then have their children, but Gabriel’s announcement of the forthcoming virgin birth changed that plan. They planned for Jesus to be born in their home in Nazareth, but an imperial census changed that plan. They planned to find a comfortable room in Bethlehem, but a crowded city changed that plan. Even the shepherds watching their flock probably had a low-key plan for that first Christmas night, to eat a simple dinner by the fire and sleep beneath the stars. But when the glory of the Lord shone around them, their plans changed.
On this most prearranged of holidays, it’s worth remembering that Jesus represents a divine intrusion into our mundane lives. Since day one, the good news of Jesus Christ has been suddenly and unexpectedly providing new perspective on what’s important. When Jesus enters the picture, plans change.
In
a year when so many of our prearrangements and traditions have been tossed aside
by the pandemic, there is an understandable longing for stability, a desire for
Christmas to be the way it’s always been. The last thing we want is another
change of plans. But maybe this Christmas of upheaval can be a reminder that
Jesus is not in the business of affirming your will, but of reconciling you to
God’s. From birth Jesus has been changing people’s plans—for the better.
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