(Painting: Jesus Discourses His Disciples: James Tissot)

Imagine the disciples first charged by Christ to go out and preach of God’s love to masses—to people who believed that the Messiah was coming not in love and mercy but as a knight in shining armor to save the world with force, power, and law. Imagine telling them of the sacrifice that God gave to save the world from death and sin, when sin and the law were the focus of the current traditions and faith. Imagine speaking to neighbors and strangers of how God came in human form and was born as a tiny babe to a virgin and without the royalty and prestige of traditional kings. That God suffered for his children; that the God of the floods and locusts and burning bushes hung on a cross for us. 

We kind of have it easy, so many years later. Christmas and Easter are holidays that are at the very least celebrated with some understanding of how God fits into the picture. And at the best God is worshipped and praised with reverence and awe at the gifts given to us in Christ’s birth and death. Most people fall somewhere in between, and still some choose to worship at the altar of the seasonal Easter Bunny and Santa. 

Is our job less difficult than the Disciples —than the Wisemen, than the first believers, those who met and walked with Jesus—to convince others of Christ’s miracles and teachings? Maybe. We don’t usually walk hundreds of miles, leave our families, live off the land, to share the gospel. But do we have it any easier in 2023 (on the cusp of 2024) to speak of Jesus’ birth, to share the good news—to witness with others of the grace that is given by God? 

In some ways, perhaps it is more difficult—or at least more complicated. We are generations past the time that our Savior walked the earth. We are generations past the verbally shared eye-witness stories of blind men regaining sight, hemorrhaging women healed—brother’s rising from the grave. But in other ways we have so many more opportunities to share God’s love in words and in deeds. 

The words of one of my favorite Christmas songs asks us to question others into believing: “Do you hear what I hear? Do you see what I see? Do you know what I know?” And when they shake their heads “no,” or look at us with uncertainty, we are to profess: “Listen to what I say! The child sleeping in the night will bring us goodness and light”. God came to us not as a soldier, or a king dressed in jewels, or a knight in shining armor—but as a child. Then God died for us on the cross so we could have eternal life. 

We must not stop witnessing and telling the good news until everyone knows what we know. In 2024, lets all share and witness, and live in example of God’s love for us in Christ. Become the disciples we long to be, the ones that will walk hundreds of miles just to tell one person the gospel of our Savior and the love of God.

Amen.