Unwrapping Grave Clothes by a Birth--How Do We Live Christmas Radically?

How does one daily unwrap Jesus in life, find Him among the thrills or falls from it? Where do we find longing so strong He rounds our fleshy corners and upends our staled routines of world? How is it possible to bring Heaven on earth and walk with a Heavenly-holed heart never full?

Rodeos don't conjure up visions of Christmas or mangers or angels harking Birth and shepherds bowing to a King. Instead, dirt and coughing on dust kicked up by horses, bulls, and boots scuffing earth come to mind. I've choked on dirt and scuffed up my dusted life and found the thrill is dangerously brief.

Maybe there was a bull or maybe not, perhaps only genteel animals surrounded a Babe all those years ago.
 
But He didn't come for only the genteel. 
 
He came for the un-noble, the broken, despised, the weak, the lowly, the un-wise to shame the things which are.
 
Sometimes I've needed blindness to see. Be knocked off my horse, meet dirt on hands and knees and crawl so I can walk. A hard dismount to let go of reigns and grab a Holy reign. To become a thing that is not to nullify the things that are.

"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

I've needed rebirth, to be a babe swaddled in Heavenly garments, drink Holy milk and grow. I need dependence on Spiritual food to live between Heaven and earth, to strengthen feeble knees so I'm able to shoulder this Jesus' mind.

I need change. Not the world's lustering offer of it, but craving the Spiritual tutor which teaches a Holy exchange.

It must die first. To produce growth, new life, and harvest, the seed must dismount it's host plant and land on soil and die in dirt. We find it strange how a Life can be made alive from death when a babe came and birthed this purpose. For a death so Life could live. A cycle both Spiritual and natural and Bethlehem was a garden where a Seed left the Host, sprouted, and died to live.

I must follow the cycle. My re-birth by Spirit means I need my own walk to a cross. Follow the way to a hill for flesh to die, inhale the scent of burial's spice and allow it's seal in a tomb so He can quake me alive. I walk in grave clothes only He can loose and free me from.

And isn't unwrapping really layer upon layer of unwrappings? An endless supply of Presence to which never ceases to upend and I too am a seed. And the seed must die and I'm grave-ly wrapped and seek my own unraveling by a Voice which calls me out of tombs. Called to live, to Life and a Babe is more than swaddled infancy, it's Holy cloth by which a King was grown to quake graves, free captives, and birth Life from death and this is Christmas.


I shared this at Faith Barista's "Unwrapping Jesus" series, click over for more or leave your own.

I also shared this at Ann's humble place and we're sharing Christmas. Go visit her wonderful writing, be blessed and read others along the way.