Christmas and Wonder

In business, companies do an analysis where they imagine where they want to be and then determine where they are. The difference between the two is the gap and documenting that is called a gap analysis. Harvard professor and innovation expert Clayton Christensen terms this gap under the banner "Jobs to be Done". This time of year, I frequently contemplate a gap analysis between the creator God and the Christ child born.

We were at a party last night and the daughter of one of our friends had a brand new 10 day old baby there. I found myself watching this baby and even trying to remotely contemplate what it took for Christ to enter our world. We had this conversation about whether the Christ child cried. In the hymn "What Child is This" it says the baby "no crying He makes". Sounds cute but I do believe the Christ child cried because a baby's only means of communicating basic need (not sin at that point) is through crying. Someone actually made a ringtone out of a crying baby - are you kidding me, but I digress. I am thirty years from this stage of my life but it still makes my blood pressure go up (wait till grandparenting).



Christmas should exacerbate our sense of wonder. I finished journaling through the book of Matthew this year As I finished up in chapters 26 and 27, I found myself in wonder as Christ stood before in succession Annas, Caiaphas, Herod, and Pilate marveling at the thought of King Jesus standing before puny man in judgment. Then to end up on a Roman cross in a form of punishment designed for the lowest of the low. Paul says it succinctly in Philippians that Christ "humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross". God who spoke the world into being becomes a baby born into the messiness of a stable, is a totally dependent child, walks among us for 33 years, and dies a slave's death.

Don't get caught up with going through the motions. Stop and and wonder. Let your mind fill with wonder this Christmas.

Home!

Deb and I traveled to Florida over the Thanksgiving holidays to visit her mom, brother, and sister-in-law as well as other family members and friends. The weather in Florida could not be better - low eighties, no rain. We had a wonderful time. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we set out on our journey home. Our original plan was to get as far as we could and then stop somewhere if we got too tired. But we kind of broke up our journey into manageable junks and around about 1:30 AM we rolled into Northeast Ohio. As we passed our first sign that welcomed us back to our home, Deb says "Ahh Brecksville".

Now on the surface of it, going from the sunny pleasant confines of Florida to the unpredictable grays of NE Ohio this time of year is hardly fitting but this is our home and there are many days it is hard to imaging living anywhere else. Jesus says in John 14:1-3 that he is going to prepare a home for us in heaven, the home we have always longed for. I blogged about home a number of weeks ago commenting on the passing of my friend Greg Gerycz. What is it about home that fills the deep longings of our heart and soul?

1. Home is a place of the familiar. It is what we are accustomed to. Being away, I think we appreciate what home represents.
2. Home is where we can rest in the routine of life. Life has its patterns and while sometimes those patterns need a break, we always feel better when we get back to those patterns.
3. Home is the physical place of authority. What I mean is that this is the place where we kind of take charge of our own lives. As much as we love to visit people, we are in their home and their place. We tell people but "Make yourself at home" but it can never be our physical home.
4. Home is the presence of relationships. It is where friends and family dwell.  Over the years, we have developed so many friends here it becomes hard to imagine being anywhere else. Our girls and much of our family are elsewhere and we go to them in one sense to reunite people and places together. This is why the longing of heaven is so natural because it reunites us with the most intimate of relationships from across time and space.

We while wintering in NE Ohio is not ideal and Florida certainly appeals to my creature comforts desires, it is very good to be Home.