Forty Cents

My checkbook balanced perfectly with the bank. But I have another book and in it I divide my checkbook balance into several sub-totals, one for housing expenses, one for auto expenses, others for food, charity, medical, etc.

Last week I added up the sub-totals and, “Oh no,” I was missing forty cents. I re-checked the housing expenses. I re-checked the auto expenses. I re-checked everything. Still I was missing forty cents. I went back to the previous month and checked every entry, every calculation. Forty cents? No luck. I went back two months, then three months. Still I could not find the forty cents. This took like 3 hours.

Finally I gave in and added forty cents to the housing expenses. When I could not fix it I just made it right. I overruled the numbers and changed the books. I justified my totals. I reconciled my accounts.

We are like the forty cents. We are out of balance with God. Our lives don’t quite add up. No matter how hard we work or how much time we spend we can’t overcome the imbalance. We need someone to just arbitrarily decide to make it right, to make us right, to get us into balance with God again, to justify and reconcile us.

God did that. God loves you that much. God loves the whole world so much that he gave the world his own son, Jesus, to pay whatever to restore us in balance with God.

Christmas is God’s picture of everything in balance.

Christmas signals 1) God’s devotion to innocence and perfection, 2) God’s faithfulness and power over all creation and 3) God’s unwillingness to give up on us.

Christmas is God’s passionate promise to make it right for us, to cover our debt, to overcome the imbalance, to justify and reconcile us to the Glory of God. No wonder that Christmas is such a Merry Holiday!

Merry Christmas to you.