The Christmas season is many things. It is a time to share with family and friends. It is a time to give and receive. Mainly, it is a time to reflect on how all our stories changed with a newborn.
The baby was the start of a resistance. Though he had no say in it, he was a king who resisted a royal birth. He grew up to be a man that resisted the snare of sin that had tripped everyone before and has ensnared everyone since. He resisted the easy immediacy of an earthly kingdom to carve out the long, hard road for the Kingdom of Heaven.
He resisted power, yet had the time to listen to those in power. He resisted the boundaries that we often throw up in our lives. As a result you saw him eating with priests, prostitutes, lawyers, lepers, and pretty much everyone in between.
He resisted the ideas of what God could and could not do. The blind saw, the lame walked, the dead rose, and thousands were fed with virtually nothing. When he healed on the Sabbath, he resisted the idea of when God could work. When he healed a Samaritan’s daughter or a centurion’s servant, he resisted the idea that God was only in the business of saving one people and one people only.
When they came to crucify him, he did not resist. And yet the very act of non-resistance resisted the way things had always been done and the way things continue to be done; even by many that claim his name. The Reign of God was not going to come from the one wielding the sword, but from the man that found himself on the wrong side of the weapon. By his wounds we are healed.
And when he died, he even resisted death. Rising and living again, he gives the hope that we too can resist death.
It’s hard to imagine that this tiny baby - so frail, so vulnerable - was the leader of a resistance. The Resistance. Those that choose to follow him must follow his example. We must resist.
Temptation.
Selfishness.
Self-preservation.
Pride.
Biases.
The ways of the world.
And on it goes.
But ultimately we resist our innate resistance to a God that loves us, every single one of us, so very much. For God loves us so much that he gave himself over to us, becoming incarnate in a tiny baby. For the leader of The Resistance could not resist us.
And so to join The Resistance, we must stop our resisting and give ourselves over to God.
Originally posted Christmas Day 2009