God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
Luke 1: 52-53
Worship
Very early in our marriage, Dennise and I were putting up our Christmas tree, when something surprising happened. This was a long time ago, when we bought a yearly real tree.
The tree was in the front window of our house at the time, which was pretty far back from the street. So, we rationalized, nobody is going to see the decorations we put on the street side. Therefore, we decided to load down our tree with decorations on the *room* side of the tree instead.
Our thought was: Our friends and family could enjoy all our ornaments with us. Their beauty wouldn’t be wasted with nobody seeing them. So, we decorated the tree in this way, admired it for a quick second, then went out to do some errands.
When we returned, much to our surprise, the tree had tumped over, into the room. We had loaded down that side of the tree with so many large and weighty ornaments that it fell over on its side.
“Tumped over” is, of course, a perfectly acceptable Texas expression.
And that’s a pretty good metaphor for the Christmas season, don’t you think? The pandemic has “tumped over” our usual holiday season. But even long before it, far too many of us spend too much time trying to get things “perfect” during the holidays.
Perfect presents.
Perfect parties.
Perfect family stories in perfectly written Christmas letters.
We try to put our “good side” out toward the world for everyone to see. But sometimes we load ourselves up with so much busyness, worry and general trying to “look good” that we get out of balance, and our holiday tumps over.
There is good news, of course.
The entire Christmas story itself is about a God who “tumps over” all our expectations.
God comes to earth as a baby, born to a migrant teenager, in a forgotten land. Christmas is about following the God who “tumps over” the expectations of perfection that we human beings far too often try to achieve and reminds us that God is present in all of God’s children, everywhere.
The scripture above is from “Mary’s song,” most often called “The Magnificat.” It’s the song Mary, the mother of Jesus, sings upon understanding her place in this remarkable story.
Christmas is ultimately about believing in a time when everyone has enough, when all are filled, when the haughty and proud are brought low and the suffering and sick are brought up.
It’s a revolutionary message of hope, love, peace and joy for all of humankind.
But if we really embrace this message of the holy season, then we’ve got to get comfortable with a time when things get “tumped over.”
Just know this: God walks with us when our plans don’t go right. God doesn’t expect perfection from us. God expects lovingkindness and compas- sion. God born in a forgotten land to a young girl … that story “tumps over” the exceptions of what “king” is, of what power is.
Perhaps that’s just the hopeful message we need this season.
