God's Diversity Christmas

God loves celebrating diversity. It began with creation and continues through today. Even Christmas is a celebration of diversity.

The Christmas story is not just about a baby being born – even a very special baby – but it also includes God reaching out to diverse people. Jesus didn’t come as a king, he came in humility as a baby to a poor family. God reaches out to the poor. God did include kings (or wise men) in the story in reaching across diverse cultural and ethnic borders to bring good news to a people that weren’t expecting it. Of course, there were also the shepherds being scared nearly to death by God’s pleasure in surprising us and reaching out to the lowly. Being a shepherd was very close to the bottom of the economic and social ranks of the time. They weren’t trusted (their testimony wasn’t even allowed in the courts!), they didn’t smell good, and nobody wanted to be near them . . . but God.

My blog is titled “Celebrating Diversity”, in part, because I believe that – celebrating diversity - is what God does. God delights in the diversity of humankind; He celebrates the richness of his creation. I believe that includes diversity in sexual orientation, gender, sex, ethnicity, culture . . . even religion (the wise men weren’t Jewish!). When that Divine baby grew and began his public ministry, he demonstrated God’s diversity again and again in reaching out to those the religious of his day wanted nothing to do with. Today many people of faith are catching on and joining God’s celebration of diversity. My heart aches for those that are missing God’s celebration and – in the process – His blessing. They will have to wait until heaven to celebrate what some of us are celebrating now.

So Merry Christmas. Enjoy the wildly diverse songs, gifts, and people that make for a wonderful celebration. Join me in celebrating diversity; it's part of what Christmas is all about.
Warm Christmas Blessings,
Julie