No More Mundane

No More Mundane

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:14

One year ago the Hurricane Sandy barreled into the East Coast with a fury unrivaled in recent history. The largest Atlantic hurricane on record, estimates assess damage to have been over $68 billion, surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina. At least 286 people were killed along the path of the storm. It affected people from Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, to 24 states in the United States.

With modern technology, meteorologists were able to accurately forecast landfall, enabling many to prepare beforehand. Yet, as with most storms, weather was “normal” a week before it hit. People were enjoying the late autumn weather of life on the Atlantic.

It is difficult to imagine the sheer force and energy of such a storm if we have never experienced it. Even now, a year later, many houses are still singular foundations filled with rubble. Businesses that once flourished have still remained closed, some with no hope of reopening. Ocean waves crested along the main streets of many coastal towns.

We wake up most days, grab a bit of breakfast and prepare for another day just like the day before. We go to work or to school, sit at the same desk, see the same people, with little change from day to day. Most of our life is years of ordinary days strung one to the next with the occasional thunderous interruption of a Hurricane Sandy or other display of unexpected power.

A band of shepherds were telling stories on the Judean hillside, having brought all the sheep into the fold. The long cloudless night was the same as nearly every other night. They were watchful and vigilant, for it was at night that wolves and other predators prowled. Most nights, though, were passed in conversation, awaiting the light of the next morning.

Right in the middle of one of those nights, a night no different than every other, a thunderous interruption broke their reverie. An army of God’s angels broke through that starlit sky, a roaring chorus singing praise to God: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to those with whom He is pleased!” The words must have gone round the shepherds’ thoughts as the choir retreated to heaven.

A single angel and told them that Christ the Lord was born in Bethlehem that very night! Christ the Lord, lying in a manger, wrapped in cloths.

God has provided a life that rises above the day to day hypnosis many of us live. He came among us, a helpless child, at the mercy of man’s foibles. Yet, at the same time, He remained “Christ, the Lord!” As the angels said, your Savior was born. Not simply “the” Savior.

This Christmas it is good to remember that the God who holds the forces of the universe in His hands humbled Himself so much that He allowed Himself to be born in a cattle stall, a feeding trough for His bed. He who flung the stars across the universe was born in a little out of the way town. And, the God who is King of all kings, chose to announce Christ’s birth first to average working shepherds on the night shift.

What difference does it make? What does it mean that Jesus is your Savior? All the things we long for, all the hopes we store up for ourselves and the world around us are found in that quiet manger punctuated by a thunder-choir of angels giving travel directions to a few shepherds at night.

Even though today may be little different than the day before it; though you may wake at the same time, go to the same job, sit at the same dinner table as yesterday and the day before, life need not be mundane.  No, we won’t hear angel choirs instead of our alarm clock each morning. 

But, we can, if we are willing to accept it, receive the most incredible gift of all time. The Almighty and Powerful Ruler of the universe has given us Jesus, our Savior. Once ordinary, our lives can be filled with purpose, lived for this incredible King, the Mighty Prince of Peace.