This is the time of year when one of the most well known “Back Then” stories is retold in churches and movies and all sorts of venues: the story of the birth of Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Messiah. There are allegories and direct versions but they all are based on the original version as told in the Gospel of Luke.
As you might imagine our church’s Christmas Eve service included a message based on that story. In fact, focused around the first three words: “In those days”. Those words are followed by facts which are historically verifiable and place the birth of Jesus in a time and place in history. Our pastor’s challenge was to think about what has happened in this past year in our lives which is that same kind of story.
As my husband and I talked about this we recalled how we fix time and sometimes place in our lives with In Those Days stories: that was the year of two weddings, that was the year I retired, that was when we went to Egypt, that was right after we built the patio. There are certain events which become frameworks for other things to hang on, sort of like an anchoring Christmas tree.
In answer to our pastor’s challenge, we reflected over the past year (reflection is another popular activity at this time of year). This has been a year with MANY In Those Days stories, some joyful, some heartbreaking, some significant because of their uniqueness.
Other stories we will remember because they occurred in the same time, same year as one of these In Those Days stories. They all become woven into the tapestry which is our life.
And just as Caesar became a side note in the story of Jesus, all of our In Those Days stories and their ornament stories anchor the much bigger stories of God at work in our lives. In each nook and cranny and roaring river of our lives, God is at work whether we see Him in the moment, or in retrospect, or are left to wonder where exactly He was or is.
The reflection and the remembering provide us the anchor of God for us, God with us, and God in us required to welcome a new year again.
In Those Days…
Just Sayin' 