For some adults, Christmas is about reliving childhood.
Or it may be about trying to experience what they missed in childhood. We need to suspend our adult cognition if we want to enjoy Christmas. Believe in Santa, flying reindeer, and Christmas magic.
Jesus does call us to become like children, trusting fully in the Father. But his call to childlikeness doesn't mean giggly, air-headed belief in snowmen who come alive.
He wants to bring us to faith that is like a child's in its simplicity, but rich with a knowing wisdom. This wisdom comes through experience, hardship, frustration, failure and success. It comes through trial and error. It comes through prayer and fasting. It comes through experiential knowledge of the scriptures.
A deeper Christmas experience comes only when we embrace the mystery of the arrival of God himself as a helpless child. In this child, he continues to reveal himself, as Creator, Master, Shepherd, and Judge.
Through means that baffle human minds, God himself comes to his hurting, broken creation to restore hope, to unveil the mystery of this creation, and to express his tender love for us.
Unto us a Child is born.
