“A Christmas Reflection” by Rev. Rick Mitchell

(from Shell Ridge "Ridge Runner" - January, 2009 issue)

In our family when I was growing up, we had a custom of reading the gospel of Luke’s account of the Christmas story before we opened gifts around the Christmas tree each year. You know, that’s the familiar Scripture that tells of the shepherds in the fields, to whom the angels appeared – “and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.” Whenever this was read in my family, we would have to pause and chuckle, remembering a little child in our church who read this verse in a Christmas pageant as “they were shore afraid.”

During my college years, like many young people, I was searching for new meaning in old, familiar religious practices. I even found myself reading the Bible from time to time. One year, before Christmas, I was reading some of the other scriptures about the Christmas story, and I came upon the one that was read in part in our December 14 service, Luke 1:26-35, 46-50. This beautiful reflection of Mary includes the Magnificat, her response to the angel Gabriel who came to tell her she had been chosen to bear the Christ-child into the world.

Mary was surely tried and tested by this experience, as she was young and not married. Her response to the angel was the same one the Samaritan woman at the well gave Jesus: "I have no husband." Like her son to come, she would be compelled to say, "I was despised and rejected of men." Luke says she was with her cousin Elizabeth for about three months before the baby was due. It was during that time of isolation and reflection that Mary received her vision.

“My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation…”

The sheer beauty of this wonderful passage captured me that Christmas. It spoke of a private moment when Mary first realized that through her a gift would be given to all people. For me, it brought the Christmas experience, sharing gifts with others, a newly personal meaning. I had always believed that giving gifts was an authentic part of Christmas – because it was a way of sharing our love with others who were dear to us. But these verses told me that long before the giving of our gifts, another richer and more profound gift was given – the never-ending love of God – and that it can be shared only through the giving of ourselves to the needs of others.

We can give because we have received the love and forgiveness of a God who redeems us. God loves, forgives, and uses imperfect people. That too is the Christmas message.