Home for Christmas

      Several dear friends have loved ones who are truly "home for Christmas" this year.  Beloved daddies...a sweet sister-in-law...a wonderful wife...a precious son...a dear mama.  Death is so hard on those left behind.  So hard.
      Don't we all know that season of loss?  That ache of missing the physical presence of the person you love.  Longing to hear the sound of their voice, the ring of their laughter.  Bearing a weight of sorrow in your heart...and yet carrying a winsome song of rejoicing in your soul, because they are home...truly, fully, gloriously Home.  And while gone from here, they are more vibrantly and fully alive than ever before...more alive, in fact, than all of us here still "living" on this planet.
      I well remember my mama going Home for Christmas, suddenly and unexpectedly 15 years ago, on a cold December morning.  If I close my eyes, I can still see the color of the carpet, the bare branches of the trees, the red Christmas bows and twinkling lights...all against a backdrop of shock and sorrow.  
      And yet...and yet...almost impossible to explain, but that deep sense of joy underneath all that sadness.  My mama was seeing, hearing, experiencing wonders and joys at that very moment that we could not even begin to fathom.  Oh to be truly Home for Christmas!
      Could there be a sweeter time to remember all this than right now?  Right at this time of year?  It's why our Savior came!  "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)
      He came to set us free from the power of sin and death. He came to shine His Light into our darkness.  He came to conquer our chaos with His peace.  He came to shatter our despair with His indefatigable joy.  "In Him was life and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:4-5)
       That glorious carol express it most beautifully--
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Risen with healing in His wings;
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth;
Hark! The herald angels sing,
'Glory to the newborn King!'
       He was born that "man no more may die." He was born "to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth."
      Jesus was born to die...that we might be born again to live forever and ever!
      That first Christmas a little over two thousand years ago spelled the beginning of the end for satan and his hordes.  The birth of that infant-God (who can get over that?--fragile newborn housing the Almighty, omnipotent Lord!) meant the eventual certain and complete doom of death, sin, sorrow, and separation.  Because He came, we will conquer.  Because He came, our loved ones in Christ, even though they die, live.  Truly, fully, joyfully live!  Because He came, we will see them again in glory.  Forever.
     Praise God for Jesus!  Praise God for Christmas!  Praise God for our home in heaven!
      O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
     To God be the glory.