My True Love Gave to Me...

Today (Friday) is the sixth day of Christmas this year, marked, according to the famous song, by the gift of "six geese a-laying." Far from just lying around (like many on winter break), these geese are in active labor, for they aptly represent the six days of creation. Friday is creation's final day, the crowning achievement of which is the formation and inspiration of God's image-bearers, man and woman. This year, that next and seventh Christmas day falls quite appropriately on Saturday, or the Sabbath, whose swimming swans remind us of the Spirit's charisma gifts. Nothing like a gift and a day of rest to remind us that we aren't the earners in this relationship! Then the eighth day of Christmas, again most appropriately, falls this year on a Sunday, the eighth day in Scripture being that of New Creation, circumcision, and new life - now that's a great day to celebrate a New Year! I just love it when little things work out like that.Although it doesn't always fall on a Sunday, the eighth day of Christmas is always New Year's day, and its "eight maids a milking" are a sign of Christ's eight beatitudes, which serve as the prologue to his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. This was the inauguration speech that launched an Unshakeable Kingdom, one whose peace would be established over all of creation, and the glory of which has no end. The final and eternal heir to David's throne wanted to set up some surprising expectations for his new kingdom with this speech, the tone of which cast vision for a world very much upside-down from this one: the last would be first, and the weak would be strong.I can't think of a more Christmassy set of themes, and certainly none that scoff so subversively at the secular liturgies of New Year's, which hype us up with promises of arbitrary clean slates and miraculous self-improvements. I've lived with myself long enough to say you can give me grace any day. I'm one of the losers, and I'm counting on my True Love's gifts and resolutions, not mine - because however unreliable I am, I can't break God's promises.So have a very merry and grace-filled New Year, and I hope to see you there!- Josh