THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
Christmas is not over! In the Church Calendar, Christmas Day is just the first of twelve days of Christmas. In this season we are called not just to welcome and celebrate the incarnate Christ Child, but to meditate on the meaning and purpose of the incarnation. We are called to understand not just who this baby was, but what he came to do. This means that we have a whole season to understand the Reign of God through the lens of the nativity story—which gives us a perspective we don’t get at other times of the year.
What we see in the nativity is not just that Christmas is a gift, and a time of peace, joy, and love. We also learn to understand why this gift was necessary. We also learn to see what stands in the way of peace, joy, and love in our world. And we learn to understand how the life and message of Jesus confronts the evil in our society and calls us into a whole new order of living and behaving.
This week we meditate on the nativity story and what it reveals to us about Jesus and his mission—which is also our mission as followers of Christ.
To download this week’s reflections in PDF format, click here.
