Not An Ordinary Day
I’ve always considered the Christmas season to be the grand finale of the year. The bleakness of winter is made warmer by the lights that adorn homes and communities. The weariness of hard work is traded in for a time of rest and renewal. The new year around the corner is somehow met with triumphant expectation. Once December hits, everything goes from ordinary to extraordinary.
December is also the time that I pick up the Christmas story once again. The account of the birth of Jesus shows me something new every year. From the holiness of what we celebrate, to the purity of God in a stained world, to the unveiling of God’s perfect plan and timing- the layered truths delve their way deep into my heart. The one point that has arrested me this year, though, is how every person we read about in this story displays a faith and courage that ushers them from the ordinary to the extraordinary.
Let’s pause and think about this. The arrival of Jesus Christ is humanity's pivotal event and the foundation of our faith. God was introduced to earth in human form, and it seems almost irreverent to say He was weak and vulnerable; but this is, after all, what a baby is. Those to whom God entrusted Himself were crucial to His plan, and yet they were no different than you and I. Ordinary.
Mary was a young girl who was preparing to start her life as a wife; but she was soon to discover that wedding planning was the least of her problems when the angel Gabriel showed up and informed her that she was going to carry the son of God. Imagine the ripple effect from this staggering news. How will she explain this to family? Her friends? Will people just believe her when she says an angel told her this? Will people even understand Who the Holy Spirit is, and that He’s fulfilling His promise from hundreds of years past? In all of this, she has one response: “May it be unto me according to Your Word.” Her answer is extraordinary.
Joseph was a carpenter looking to provide for his future wife and family. His life is turned upside down when he learns that his betrothed is already pregnant. A man of honour, he decides that rather than seeing his soon-to-be bride stoned to death, he will secretly divorce her. That is, until that same angel that appeared to Mary now appears to him and fills him in on God’s plan. He receives the Word to follow through on the marriage and to act as a father to God’s son. He obeys this word in complete defiance of his culture and total trust in the Almighty. A courageous choice that is no less than extraordinary.
Joseph and Mary are just two examples in this story. There were others, all of whom were just ordinary people living ordinary lives until God appeared to them to bring them into His extraordinary story. For Mary and Joseph, the profound revelation of the Christ coming to earth was now theirs to keep in their hearts. The weight of this responsibility had the potential to be crushing, but we know that it wasn’t. Because with this extraordinary news came their extraordinary, heavenly responses: a heartfelt yes.
The world has changed time and time again since the angel spoke to those parents thousands of years back, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the way God works. Every day, we’re living an ordinary story, but our God invites us into something full of awe and wonder. Christmas signals the end of a year by injecting its light and warmth into the everyday cold and dark, and its timeless truths remind us that there is an extraordinary Father working beyond our ordinary perspectives. He’s looking for those who have the faith to trade in their story for His story. People like you and I, who may write ourselves off as “ordinary”, but who are still asked to embrace His wonder-filled plan. People who, when called, respond like the men and women of old that we read about in the Christmas story: “be it unto me according to your Word.”
Give God your heartfelt yes and watch Him work extraordinarily through your life.
- Sam McGrew, Assistant Pastor