Fine Line at the Wrong Time - A Christmas Carol Conversation

"The hopes and fears from all the years are met in thee tonight."

That lovely lyric from the Christmas hymn is one of the most beautiful ever penned. They encompass almost all of the human experience and remind us that Jesus' birth introduced the world to a presence of the divine in a very relatable package.

But I do believe that this particular line is used to described the wrong story. The right character but the wrong tale.

Now both stories involve a rejected family, uncomfortable wooden accommodations, a crowd of unlikely witnesses, kings and a King, shepherds and a Shepherd, and the Divine willingly being placed in situations not deserved.

The hopes and fears of the world may have been represented in the nativity but they were juxtaposed on a hill called The Place of the Skull. In one hand the hope of reconciliation and friendship. In the other hand the failure of trying to deliver ourselves. Both hands nailed to a cross.

The cross was simultaneously triumph and defeat. It was finished. But it was just beginning. We fear the end. We hope for another beginning. In the cross we both.

Christmas was just the beginning. Let's remember that. Now is the time when we celebrate the opening pages of the story of Jesus. And for those that follow him it the beginning of our story too.