Christmas Day: Surgeon Savior

Christmas Day.

Sometimes I am not sure if I really want to be like Jesus.  Truthfully, I am not sure what my other options are, but I am certain of what I am rejecting when it comes to this decision.

Selflessness, that's what I'm rejecting.

When I don't want to be like Jesus it is because I am done with trying to be like him.  I can't do it.  Something always frustrates my attempts.  My attempts only peel back the layers of good intentions to show something unpleasant beneath.

Inside I need grace.  Grace that will come like a careful surgeon and skillfully fix what I do not have the ability to reach.  Internal issues that require a surgeon cannot be figured out by a butcher wielding a butter knife.  Both will make cuts, but only one will prove to be healing.

Every Christmas we celebrate the birth of the finest soul surgeon.  He came to make the cut.  And he used the sharpest tool: love.

Christmas is always a day of paradox.  On one hand we see the complete selflessness of God and on the other hand we often spend a good deal of time setting the stage to put ourselves front and center.  So often gift giving is more to prove a point than to simply lavish love.

We have this example:

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:9-11)