Redemption

One of those things about my personality/strengths is that I look for connections in everything. It can be fun to do but often times if I can't articulate well enough it is hard to describe why I see a connection in random things and why that matters. This is done usually without even knowing it but lately as I have been inundated with seemingly random Christmas stories . I have been looking hard for the connection between a story like Rudolph and The Christmas Carol, Prancer and White Christmas, Miracle on 32/or 34th (can't remember which number) Street and It's a Wonderful Life. Every night on TV you can enter another re-creation of the Christmas Carol or a inane story about ....and here is the connection...redemption. Think about the stories...there is a broken situation...a realization of the broken-ness...a divine intervention...redemption. The divine intervention often comes in the form of 'Christmas magic', nevertheless there is restoration of relationships, a realization of what is important and poof....redemption IE: a made for TV Christmas special.
The irony in all of this is that in the birth of Jesus, there is no redemption YET. It is redemption at the start but not in its final draft. You have to have the story of the death and Resurrection to make the story of Christmas complete. Yet in the hoopla of this season, every story of redemption from the trivial of Elf to the profound of The Christmas Carol would not resonate if that wasn't all our desires. The desire of nations...this baby in the manger...redemption in swaddling cloths.