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Happy Christmas!

I wonder if you’ve ever watched a series on a DVD box set, anything with David Attenborough for example - where they take you behind the scenes. They film the filming to show you how much more amazing are the scenes you’ve already come to know and love.
Now, we know about Christmas. We know about Mary. We know about Joseph. We know about the angels singing in the heavens, and startling the shepherds. And the star shining above a stable. That’s the story, those are the scenes you already know and love.
But what about the story behind the  story?  Behind the scenes is the creator of heaven and earth, the one who is eternity, who enters history, who steps into time, who stoops to become one of us -  the divine becoming human  - to reconcile the world to himself. It’s the most vulnerable act in the history of the cosmos: God becoming human – and a helpless babe at that.

God became what we are… that we might become what he is. That we might be reconciled to one another and to God. So we don’t just glimpse the story – you know, another onlooker at the stable on Christmas day – but we get the story behind the story. And what’s more, we become incorporated into the story – a player who doesn’t just watch but takes part, in the story that continues on, far beyond the nativity.
Gracious God, who became as we are,
May we become as you are. Amen.