God come down 12/12

watch this…

my friend, Rachel, shared a link from 2010…
Christmas Flash Mob by Journey of Faith at South Bay Galleria – official video
http://www.youtube.com
i was naively sitting down to get some work done, go through emails, do normal things and i watched the video and came undone. there is something about this flash mob erupting in worship in this mall, amidst people, naively going about their holiday preparations, their shopping, their trudging, their joking, their stressing, their relationships and they are caught unawares. it really defined Christmas for me. when i step into a church i carry all my expectations and desires to be moved, to see my God, to listen, to be transformed. and sometimes that all works out and other times I am left with just more of myself, my aggravations, my decisions, my agendas (or my dubious parenting in pulling a chair out from under Eli to crash him to the floor to teach him to stay standing when the congregation is standing). but this moment where they, where i, am caught unawares is when I am torn from MY world where I reign and i am drawn to my knees by the irresistible pull of my King. i am not a big fan of holidays since they are the harbinger of breakdown for me. so it is sunlight and sustenance to drop my baggage, my shopping, my lists, and savor my Savior… to feel my lips curving unbidden around the magnificent truths in each word of those songs… to remember what real joy is as the Presence of my God touching earth, touching my mundane days, touching me transforms it all.
we are good. mike is good. he continues to plug away at daily exercises which keep him more flexible and keep his muscles in tune toward bearing his weight. he still tries standing and taking some steps. it is always hard for me to gauge or convey a sense of progress because he is not “doing” something new. he cannot take more steps than before necessarily. some days he can do less than the day before but then it comes back later in the week. i believe that not regressing still counts as progress in our house. a bright light of autumn was Mike’s opportunity to do the opening prayer for our local Young Life banquet. the experience was a wild card because mike can easily become fatigued from being in his wheelchair and insist on reclining or leaving or become permanently distracted by his discomfort. or he can simply weary and become inaudible. so i warned him earlier in the day that in case something is going wrong (like he is whispering and the microphone isn’t registering his voice) i might try to take the microphone to fix it so please do not fight me for microphone control. he asked if that was in case he said something inappropriate. i laughed and said, “yes, that would be another reason i will wrestle the microphone away from you!” but mike did a wonderful job and if i hadn’t been on wrestling patrol i may have thought of videoing it. he opened with the Jerry Macguire line of “Show me the money” since it was a fundraiser but then reconsidered starting a prayer that way and continued on to beautifully offer up the evening and its fruit to the Lord.
maybe that is what ties all this together. maybe it is the very fragility of these lives we meander through, these moments that can go either way, good or bad, that get unmasked at Christmas and reveal our weaknesses, our weariness, our wishes and all of this- all of this– we ludicrously pile at the feet of this infant–this infant that reflects our vulnerabilities in his very helplessness and yet absorbs it all with the densely packaged might of God come down.
so, Emmanuel. Praise and Hallelujah!