This advent season, I've been thinking about how much we change in preparation for Christmas. Our wardrobe changes: we have a tote in the attic that contains only Christmas clothes (and lots of Christmas socks!).
Our décor changes, of course: there are now twinkly lights and greenery and cards and crafts everywhere! Not to mention we often move around our rooms to prepare for the tree and hosting guests.
Our music changes: you walk into a store and BAM! Mariah Carey everywhere!
Our spending changes: no longer am I the semi-frugal person I was in September, I am now an unhinged mom with two baby girls who I want to just buy entire stores for, because, "I can't wait to see their face when they open this on Christmas morning!"
Our routines & plans change: we cram way too many parties & extras into our calendar and assume we can do them all.
Our diet changes: ah, a week-long steady consumption of cheese & sugar 😂
The list goes on! We change a whole lot in preparation for Christmas.
Some of these changes may be appropriate. After all, the coming of Jesus is a story about change! But change is a funny thing, isn’t it? We want change now, but also we don’t want it at all, thank you very much. It feels like in every marriage there’s one person who enjoys changing everything all the time and one person who feels like the change is the end of the world: "how dare you move the toothbrush holder to the other side of the counter when its been over here for 16 years and it’s been perfectly fine!" Just the word change can be such a mixed bag of emotions.
In Luke chapter 2, in the quintessential Charlie Brown-recited Christmas story, Israel is at a place in their story where they desperately need a change. They had many deeply entrenched problems. Many times, God's people thought they knew the kind of change they needed, but soon realized they change they'd tried to bring about on their own wasn't going to last.
The stark realization waiting for us in the Christmas story is this: change starts small.
"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:8-13
"A baby?!?" the shepherds must have cried out. No, no, no. "This isn't the change we need. This isn't the Messiah we have been singing about and talking about for centuries! We need a mighty warrior! We were expecting someone to swoop down in majestic, angelic splendor and rescue us from Roman oppression! A baby?!?! How could this be your plan, God?"
The scriptures help us to know that God’s people were expecting and praying for a drastic move of God, and yet, the agent of change that God introduces here in this story (a baby, born in smelly barn to no-name parents) seems way too small and even insignificant to make any kind of real change. Often, the change we truly need doesn’t make sense to us at first. And yet, this is how God works. This is almost always how God has worked. God sets his eye on seemingly small people from small places in small moments and says "yeah, this seems like the best way." God does things like - -creating an entire nation from one old man Abraham and his barren wife - uses the 'smallest man from the smallest clan' (Gideon) to defeat the Midianite army - uses the smallest soldier and a few rocks to defeat the giant Goliath - uses twelve seemingly random nobodies to multiply a worldwide movement called Christianity It's this same God who says that "if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20-21). This is how God changes things. It starts small. And the birth of this little baby is no different. Jesus wasn’t really the change that anyone was expecting, but He was the exact change that we needed. Inside that baby was a force of love so big that it would change the world as they knew it.
This Christmas, it would be pertinent for us to remember once again that change starts small, and further, that God delights in small, and that He loves small beginnings (Zechariah 4:10). If we don't remember this, then you and I, the ordinary small people that we are, in the small town that we find ourselves, living our relatively small lives – if we don’t understand this story, we’re going to have a hard time understanding that God wants to come to us in our small, normal lives. That’s where God wants to do His work of changing the world: in small people like you and me.
The Christmas story is a story about change, and God is still changing the world through the events and the unfolding of this weird Christmas story and these small people who simply said yes to God. And God is still changing people, taking hearts of stone and turning them into hearts of flesh. But change starts small. And I think this Christmas season, as we’re preparing and changing up all the things – I think it is the perfect time to think about what small change God might be inviting us to make that will prepare Him room to work in our lives.
“...so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 MSG
God, help us trust in your slow work. Help us to see you today and notice all the ways you’re working. Help us not to be frustrated by small beginnings or slow change – but help us to trust your pace. Please Lord, make our lives brighter and more beautiful as we surrender to you anew each day. Let our families and our neighbors see you in us, Jesus. Amen.
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