To quote Noddy Holder ‘It’s Chriiiiiiiiiisssssstmaaaaassss’ (nearly).
One of the words used at Christmas is ‘incarnate’. That basically means in human form, made flesh. The Son of God ‘incarnates’ himself as a man. He came down to earth in human form to get alongside us, share our life and experiences, so he could help / save us. Now, don’t worry I haven’t lost the plot, there is a ‘dit’ coming ..
Back in the 80s during the Cold War, my ship was taking part in a massive NATO exercise, involving ships from all over the world. We were one of the ‘enemy’ units, our mission was to attack the US based carrier group. I hate to admit it but we were taken out fairly early, and had no operational weapon systems, either offensive or defensive. We could still ‘float’ and ‘move’ but had no ‘fight’ capability. So we were no longer a threat to the ‘enemy’.
An Australian frigate that was part of our task group attacking the carrier group, approached us. She was completely radio silent on comms channels. As she came up on our starboard side they used the loud hailer to outline their plan. They would sit very close on our starboard beam so that we would appear as a single radar echo. We would attempt to get close to the carrier group and then she would use her firepower to carry out an attack. We had become ineffective and as a fighting unit basically useless, but all of a sudden we were a viable option to ‘bring violence to the enemy’. We came under her self -defence systems, she could send over teams to help us with damage repair of our weapon systems and she had an attack capability. But as soon as the carrier group worked out what was going on we would again be a target. They would not be happy. The plan worked and we were able to get a missile off (well the Aussies were) and attack before we were seen … (then the analogy falls over coz we were both wiped out by air attacks, but hey ho).
And it’s a bit like that for us as Christians. Jesus came (and after his death and resurrection left us the Holy Spirit) to walk alongside us, to provide us with support, to bring us under the cover of his defence systems and to get us back into the fight, an effective part of the task group again.
So where are you this Christmas, in your relationship with Jesus? Feeling a bit ineffective and like there is no ‘fight’ left in you? Just about floating and moving? Going through the motions of a Christian life? If you want more then can I suggest you listen to the plan coming from the loudhailer and accept the help and safety that Jesus brought when he came to earth for us and started the next stage of his plan to ‘bring violence to the enemy’. But be ware you will become a target again, so make sure you fix up the broken weapon systems and get back into the centre of the task group where others can help and offer mutual support …
Until next time …. a very Happy Christmas and see you in the smoke of 2019 ..
Hands to action stations … but maybe after a nice bit of R and R alongside somewhere over the next week or so …
