Abba,

How do you make that which is familiar, novel again?

How do you make that which is common, unique once more?

How do you treasure anew that which has lost its luster?

How do you regain a sense of majesty and wonder, innocence and awe for that which we have permitted to become ordinary?

Why is this our tendency and flaw?

Why is this our burden to bear?

Why are we so prone to marginalization?

To the trap of familiarity?

Why do we so easily downgrade the divine?

Of course, these are rhetorical.

The answer is obvious

The condition of humanity plain

OUR condition is clear

We are sinful

Fallen

Broken.

Sin strips the shine from the divine

Sin dulls the luster of majesty

Sin diverts Glory’s rays to attract lesser things

Sin takes the supreme, the ultimate, the transcendent

Making it plain, familiar, common, ordinary…

And it becomes lost to our sight.

What a tragedy!

What a loss!

And yet, hope is not all lost

The divine, the majesty, the glory is not lost forever

That which sin has minimized

That which we take for granted

That which we have forgotten, forsaken, and ignored

Has never lost is luster or glory shine!

Where we have failed, You succeed, Abba.

You don’t let us forget.  You awaken your people.

Though we may slumber for a time,

You will always draw your own back to divine wonder at your presence!

You know our propensity for forgetfulness; for depreciation of the divine.

There is great danger in this familiarity that results in this devastating depreciation. 

That which is familiar is not valued. 

That which is common is not treasured.

Christmas, this celebration of your birth, Jesus, has been familiar, common, for too long.

How has it come to mean so little to us?

How has the miraculous become plain?

When did the gospel, the very reason for this miraculous birth, lose its magnificent shine in our hearts?

When did our preferences press out the gospel?

When did consumerism replace salvation?

When did covetousness and greed press out reconciliation?

When did traditions overwrite remembrance?

When did lights and glitz hide the simplicity of a manger? 

When did our comfort distort the salvation message?

When did our temporal safety take primary concern over eternal deliverance from a just God’s wrath?

When did our personal agenda’s corrupt the pure purpose of Your great love story?

Abba, I can’t shake the profound sense of gospel neglectfulness we have fallen into

I can’t shake the sense of gospel depreciation that has gripped your church.

Too often do I sense it in my own life.

Too often is it clear in your church

Glaringly obvious is it in the world at large 

How easily the mission of gospel has been marginalized

How quickly has it been sidelined.

How readily has the work of our ambassadorship been replaced.

Abba, I am acutely aware of the complexities of this life and the legitimacy of proceeding with wisdom and discernment in the face of real threats.

But when did temporal concerns override those of eternal?

When did fleshly concerns come to mean more than spiritual?

And how do we get it back?

The mandate of the gospel has not changed

How do we reach a world being forced into isolation?

How are we embracing the opportunities for the gospel in a time ripe with readiness?

Has our response revealed our readiness, our shoes shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace?

Or has our response revealed our sleepiness and indifference?

Christmas has not changed.

It’s meaning remains the same

The intent of our celebrations has always intended to be gospel focused.

It is we who have changed

We who have permitted a God rejecting world

To redefine what our sacred remembrance is about

And little by little, we have lost our way

And while we profess remembrance

So much of our “remembrance” is forced justification

To ease our guilty conscience

Over gospel forgetfulness

Over marginalizing of the divine

Over fleshly indulgence

Abba, return us to sacred remembrance

To undivided worship

To purposeful meditation

To humble thankfulness

Return our focus

To gospel centeredness

To passionate servanthood

To global proclamation

To universal church edification

To majestic glorification

To Divine Worship!

Abba, return our hearts

Rescue us from the ordinary

Clear the fog from our eyes

Burn off the dross of familiarity

Shine bright the majestic once more

Outshine the lesser lights

Make us tremble once more

In terror and awe of Your great glory

Revealed, displayed, and executed

Through the gospel narrative

Of a Savior come near

A Messiah standing in my place

Of reconciliation offered

Of the way made open….

Because….

Of a babe in a manger!