“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you,
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
……
but woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated
the false prophets”
Luke 6:20(ish) – 26
I have thought about these verses a lot in the last few days as Christmas approaches. These verses first hit me hard my freshman year of college – sitting on a old couch with hot chocolate in my hand and my bible in the other. Jesus shows up in the most random places. Anyway, It was around Christmas of 2009 when I started seeing things through this new found lens. Consumption began to break my heart. Materialism and greed were things Jesus spoke so clearly against and yet they were all I knew. Let me tell you, it was a terrible thing being stuck in a world that I had never seen a problem with.
It was such a battle learning how to break myself of comforts. It still is. Early last December I got to volunteer at God Tell – A homeless ministry in downtown Nacogdoches. Truth is, I needed these people way more than they needed me. Now, I see that the larger poverty does not rest on the homeless, but it rest on those who are so comfortable they don’t want to walk out their doors to invite the homeless in.
It rest on me.
I myself, more often than not, am feed the poison of greed and consumption. Even though I know money to be toxic, I am a slave to it more often than not. But no dollar is worth what we put behind it – the way we idolize it.
No dollar is worth our soul.
I guess, I just envision the way Christmas is supposed to look. A day full of celebration. Full of joy. A day full of love. I just wish we could restore Christmas to what it’s really all about.
You know, the birth of our savior.
Maybe, this Christmas, we could skip out on buying and instead we could love one another as Christ loved us. Not with extravagant things to win the approval of man. Instead we could live simply, sacrificially, and faithfully. Breaking bread together and loving one another.
It takes me back to what the Garden would be like. A time where we could walk with God in intimacy, fully satisfied in him. I’m realizing that I don’t want to see all this good and bad anymore. I just want to go to Eden and walk next to God. Focused on Him, and not things.
amen.
