THE CHRISTMAS QUESTION

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. (Luke 1:26-27 NIV)

Every year the world’s largest automakers come together in Detroit Michigan for a stellar event. First string entertainers man multiple stages, high-tech extravaganzas of light and sound and video and graphics fill the conference hall, multiple 5 star banquets are laid on in the adjoining ball rooms for the VIP guests and millions of dollars are spent producing the Detroit Auto Show. Oh and don’t forget the press. The automotive media and every other media service is there in great numbers and wined and dined like royalty because after all, they are the town criers of the electronic age, the royal heralds and chroniclers of the 21st Century.

And what is all this for? What is all that moving and grooving, singing and schmoozing and million dollar light show all about? Well, Ford and GM and Chrysler and all the other big names just want to make an announcement. They have some new models coming out and they want to be sure that everybody hears about them.

2010 years ago God did something totally new, something completely different from anything that had ever been done before. But compared to the Detroit Auto Show and most other new things we hear about, he barely made a peep about it. God never announces things like we do. Most of the time, when God makes an announcement about something he’s going to do he does it in an out of the way place, to an unsuspecting person at an inopportune time and lets the rest of the world catch up very slowly.

That’s what he did on the first. God sent a supernatural messenger to the teenage fiancé of a Jewish carpenter in a tiny backwater Judean town to tell her that an unplanned pregnancy would precede her marriage. I can’t think of a more inconspicuous and, from Mary’s point of view inconvenient way to usher in the arrival of the Savior of the World. Mary’s life was going to be turned upside down. Yet that’s the way God works. The Christmas question for Mary was: would she cooperate with God? Would she receive this blessing mixed with such difficulty?

Incarnation is always difficult, always inconvenient from a human point of view. When Jesus wants to make his presence known in your life, to work in you and through you to bless the world, it will most likely happen at a time and in a situation that is problematic for you, awkward, just plain hard. The Christmas question for you is: will you let him be Lord in that moment?

The Savior does not need and will not use a big, loud, splashy forum to do his work. He comes in quiet ways to humble people who are willing to cooperate, even when his timing is inconvenient. How will you answer the Christmas question?