When I was in elementary school, one of my sister’s classmates won a colouring contest that for the prize, took his family to an exotic place, like Disney Land or Hawaii. The colouring contest was put on by Safeway. I remember the picture. It had a koala bear on it with a can of fruit cocktail. This fellow took a ruler and coloured that picture line by line. He even took a fruit cocktail can and coloured the can in perfect imitation. He expertly coloured inside the lines and won a great prize.
In the Gospel we hear the line, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what would be spoken to her by the Lord.” In the Second Reading we heard, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire but a body you have prepared for me. See, Lord, I have come to do your will.” Christmas is a season of great expectation where many of us always have great excitement. We might suppress it but it is there. We might reject it and go into depression that we won’t have our desires fulfilled. We do that because there is a promise and it doesn’t ever seem to be fulfilled. We often come up with elaborate schemes to make Christmas great – more presents, greater dinners. I hear it said that Christmas is about the family but it is not. You can easily be hurt and lonely in a family. The gifts you receive might not be what you wanted. The gifts you gave might be rejected. Christmas is about a promise by God that God would come and live among us. That God would take flesh and live. If we don’t put this one thing first then Christmas will be a let down, it will feel like a broken promise and you will pay off your Christmas debt and try again next year.
In the Empire of China, the Emperor had a seed growing contest for the children. He gave them each a seed and told them to grow it and come back in two months with what they had grown. Before one little fellow started, he researched how to best grow his seed, how much water, what type of soil to use and he followed this carefully. Yet, despite his best efforts, he grew nothing. Two months later he took his pot of dirt to the contest to show the Emperor what he had grown. The other children had beautiful plants of varying shapes and sizes but not this little fellow. The Emperor looked out and saw the one boy with a pot full of dirt and smiled and brought him to the front. He told them, “Only one of you followed my directions to grow the seed I gave you. I did not ask you to grow a plant, or the biggest plant or the nicest plant, I asked you to grow the seed I gave you. I gave you all boiled seeds.” He then took the young boy into his service.
Christmas is about God living among us. The more we focus on that, the more we will see the true joy of Christmas. So your question is what would Jesus do this Christmas? God, what is your will for me this Christmas? How do you want to make yourself present in my life? You could invite someone for dinner that you know is alone. You could wrap gifts for people who would not get anything and deliver them Christmas Day. You could forgive someone who has hurt you. If we want Christmas to be special, to fill its promise, we must colour in the lines. We must trust the seed, even though it is not the way we have done it. We must allow Christ to live and act through us this Christmas.
Another gift we can give is to accept and give thanks for the way God made you. For each thing you don’t like about yourselves, say, “Thank you, God, because I know you can make me joyful exactly as you have made me.” Much of our joy is stolen because we think God did not make us right and we wish to be something else or somewhere else, with someone else. Yet God has not made a mistake and He knows you and loves you as you are. He comes to be with you as you are. Every aspect about you can bring and fulfill the promise God has made.
Make plans now about how you will show Christ present in the people around you so that the promises spoken will be fulfilled.