Daniel Diadiggo’s "Christmas Chronicles" Part 1 – Monday Morning Momentum Minute
The point of Monday Morning Momentum is to ensure your week maintains the momentum you got from the shot in the arm your pastor gave you yesterday. I try to pass on some brief word that has me jazzed about jumping out of bed and taking a bite of of Monday. This week, I had a few great thoughts to share. But, none of them were as well ironed out as the one that I got in my email from Daniel Diadiggo a few weeks ago.
I’ve posted some of Daniel’s stuff here in the past – Diadiggo is one of those guys who “gets it” when it comes to Jesus, grace, and truth. He also really gets it when it comes to the pattern of this age and the pattern of God (example). On top of that, I find him to be an incredibly insightful and cogent writer, able to articulate complex ideas in a staggeringly simple way.
A few years ago, I witnessed one of his family’s traditions, performed at a local restaurant, called “Christmas Chronicles”. For the next few weeks, as I take some time off from the blog to soak more thoroughly in the word and unclutter some of my own brain at year end, I’ve chosen to unleash his “Christmas Chronicles” for your consumption and cogitation.
I hope as you disciple others it will serve as a helpful framework for sharing important truths about Christmas, Christ, and the God who loves us with a crazy, crazy love. It’s a tradition I’m sure the Pina family will adopt in years to come and I hope it proves to be a unique blessing to you as you and your family gather to celebrate the incarnation of a risen Savior.
Merry Monday Momentum & Merry, Merry Christmas!
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Foreword: Twenty-two years ago as newlyweds, Kelle and I invited family and friends to our tiny, rented duplex to read the Christmas story. Together, we read Scripture, prayed, and sang hymns. Sprinkled in between were some vignettes I wrote which were spoken by alternating readers. The idea has survived as a family tradition in some form through the years and has become known locally (as in our family room) as “the Christmas Chronicles”. dcd
#1 in the midst of the mundane
Read:
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
Speak:
Joseph was doing his taxes when Jesus was born. He was rendering to Caesar that which was Caesar’s – he was giving the world it’s due.
What a pain.
Life is a strand of ordinary things, often inconvenient things.
… things we’re supposed to do
… things we have to do.
This was one of these.
Joseph hoisted his very pregnant betrothed onto a donkey and set out for Bethlehem because
… that’s what he was supposed to do.
It was in Bethlehem, in the middle of Joseph’s drudgery
that God punctured time and appeared in flesh.
God does that a lot.
He interrupts our routines…
At the most inconvenient of times
…when we’re bothered by something else
…times when we’re too busy to pay attention
God breaks through
And delivers… LIFE!!
Pray:
Lord, thank you for the mundane – for those burdens You have pressed upon us, for those things that are in the way. Thank You for delivering life into the midst of our mundane!