Posted December 19, 2016 in Around the Synod

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. —John 1:1

Finished

FROM OUR SLEIGH TO YOURS: JOY AND PEACE — Wayne, Chantal, Gwenn, Mike, Catherine and Sue

In this season of hope, expectation, promise and birth… we send warm greetings and prayers for blessings now and into the New Year! It is said that through Mary’s womb God was “smuggled” into the world as Emmanuel.

That word “smuggled” has always intrigued me!

When I think of something being smuggled, I am aware that:

… there is a sense of “sneaking” in, so as to protect? hide? insure safe, unharmed passage?

… certain people are aware of what is being smuggled, others are not.

… for good or for ill, the smuggled item is REALLY IMPORTANT (at least to the smuggler!).

For the most part, God did emerge into this world as Jesus, at first ordinary and unknown — except for a few disreputable shepherds and wise strangers who might be suspect as outsiders! If God’s plan was truly to “smuggle him in” — it worked! Only as time passed did the world come to know the wonder of Emmanuel.

And that is how the story goes.

300th transparentExcept, each Christmas, as WE re-member and the story finds new life in us, smuggled or not, we know who that precious baby is and will become. And we have confidence that the story will bear out our understanding — every time! We don’t have to wait until the grown man Jesus is baptized and enters ministry to act on the message that will come. We know who he is and what the message will be — we know it in Advent, through Christmas and on into the New Year!

What God smuggles into the world on Christmas morning — that precious, protected, important GIFT in Jesus — is already a known to us!

And nobody told us that we had to keep that knowledge, that part of the story, a secret-even in advent!

In fact, we have been told quite the opposite, haven’t we?

Haven’t we?

Indeed!

Merry Christmas… Happy New Year

Susan Faye Wonderland

Transitional Executive

Synod of the Trinity