When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best

Most older readers will recognize this phrase as the very clever tag line used by Hallmark Cards to insure that everyone purchased their greeting cards. How many of us, having this reminder in our heads, would turn the card over to make sure the sender considered us worthy of receiving “the very best”? I”ll come back to this later.

I remember seeing a National Geographic photo of the Milky Way galaxy, with its millions of stars in a swirling, elliptical mass of matter, gases, and space.  And then some jokester selected one very small speck of light, and placed an arrow with the humbling statement, “You are here!”  I have no idea why God decided that about 4 BC in the region called Judea, on a planet called Earth, he would reveal His love through an infant to be named Jesus, but this seems to be what happened.

We have only two accounts of his birth, one in Matthew and one in Luke, and they are quite different.  In Matthew, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and sought refuge in Egypt because of the attempt to kill baby Jesus.  In Luke’s account, Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth and went to Bethlehem for the Roman census.  There we have the familiar story we always read at Christmas of the birth in a stable.  The Wise Men are only presented in Matthew and the shepherds are mentioned only in Luke.

Which narrative is more accurate we will never know for certain.  The important fact is first and foremost that he was born, that he lived, and that he was a real person.  He took no shortcuts in life.  He grew up in a Jewish family of plain, hardworking parents, and probably had both brothers and sisters.  He probably suffered through all the angst of adolescence and the uncertainty of youth.  But somewhere along the line, something–a spark, a light, whatever–of divine origin came into his life that transformed him into a man like no other the world has ever known.  He brought something new into the world.  He brought love without limits–love that cares, gives and understands.  Love that heals broken lives and broken relationships.  He showed us what God is like, and taught us what God expects us to be like.

I come back full circle to my image of the galaxies–millions and millions of them.  I think, how could God possibly know what is happening down on this “you are here” earth?  God is the creator of the universe–how could or would He be interested in or care about what goes on here?  That He appears to be very much concerned is to me the ultimate mystery and miracle.  I think Jesus came not only to tell us about God, but he also returned to God knowing what it is like to be human, with all the pain and joy, sadness and gladness, successes and failures.  How reassuring and comforting this is for all us mortals to know that God, through Jesus, has experienced life in all its dimensions.

And so let’s consider again the Hallmark card.  God has indeed cared enough for us that He sent His very best.  And what is our response to Him?  Have we given our best, because we care so much in gratitude for the gift of Jesus?  Let us all travel the Advent and Christmas Season in a spirit of joy and thankfulness.

Reid Roberts