Awkward Family Pictures - Advent 2

I got my first Christmas card this week...Do you ever notice how the photo Christmas cards we receive always portray everyone color coordinated, smiling, and beautiful? We like to be sure we look cleaned up before we send a picture out for everyone to see, right?  Of course, I understand, we are not super thrilled to send awkward or embarrassing photos of ourselves to our friends and family...

Here are just a few photos you probably won't be receiving this year:

(Taken from www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com)

And then there is this one...

Maybe it doesn't LOOK like an awkward family photo because we often do a good job at “cleaning it up”. But let's think about this...

Mary – a teenage girl who claims she has been talking to angels and is telling everyone she is pregnant because of God.

Joseph – perhaps the most normal of the bunch but claims to have received messages in dreams and continues to hang out with that “crazy” girl, Mary.

Shepherds – who probably look less like what we see here and more like one of the guys off The Deadliest Catch – dirty, smelly, and pretty rough around the edges

Wise Men – who, whether or not they were there on the exact night, are some combination of Eastern religious guys and astrologers (which wasn't really looked favorably upon)

Add the ADD addition to the picture in the form of the angels – who are loud, getting up in everyone's face, singing, emitting intense light, and declaring proclamations at the top of their lungs.

And the crazy thing is that this is the family picture God has chosen...and He doesn't try to clean it up! While we might not want any of these people at our next family reunion, God is not embarrassed by any of them!

The 2^nd candle of Advent represents Love. I think of the verse we all probably know so well:

For God so loved the world that he sent His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

But let's look at that verse in light of our awkward family photo....

“For God so loved Mary and Joseph that He sent His Son, to invite them into the family picture”

 For God so loved those messy, rough shepherds that He sent His Son, to invite them into the family picture

 For God so loved some spazmo angels that He sent His Son, and invited them into the family picture

 For God so loved even those star-reading foreigners that He sent His Son, to invite them into the family picture

And if we listen closely, I think we can hear the Spirit say to us...”For God so loved you that He sent His Son, to invite you into the family picture."

And the great thing is this family picture – God's family picture – is that it is not about the crazy, messy, bewildered, doubting, foreign, broken, spazmo people. It is a picture of His enormous love. And God is not embarrassed! Without any cleaning up, we all get invited into the picture!

If you are up for it, this week we can practice Advent again in one of two ways...

If you have a cell phone, take a not-so-flattering picture of yourself and save it as your wallpaper this week.  Every time you use your phone and see it, let it remind you of God's great love for you no matter what you look like!  

Or...each time you pass a photograph in your home, or receive a photo Christmas card in the mail, let it stop you and may you hear God's invitation to us, “I love you! I am not embarrassed of what you look like...welcome to the family picture!”