O Come All Ye Faithful

O come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant
Oh come ye O come ye to Bethlehem;
come and behold him born the King of angels;
O come let us adore him Christ the Lord.

I have been thinking a lot about this song. And I can't get past this one idea. The faithful aren't perfect. The faithful didn't have it easy. 
The faithful are broken. The faithful are tired and beaten down.  
I was thinking about the definition of faithful, I couldn't just settle with the one that meant I was loyal to the end. Yes, The call is to those of us who are faithful to the end. 
But there's another definition, me being who I am, in love with words, I looked it up.

Faithful: Full of Faith.

How intricitatly simple? 

Faith: A strong belief or trust in someone or something. 

Christmas is a call to those who are full of faith. And those of us who are full of faith are broken, we are tired, we sometimes feel like we cannot face one more day. But that, is what brings us to be full of faith.
Christmas is a call to the weary. Christmas is a call to those who have been trying and failing. Christmas is a call to the helpless.

Mary, abandoned by all that love her, except for Joseph. Mary, weary from a long journey, the Christ within her. Mary, with young, tired eyes, full of faith, was faithful to the One who called her, the One she would soon call Son and Savior.
Joseph, ridiculed by his desicion to love a supposed harlot. Joseph, also exhausted from the travel, knew what was ahead. He knew fleeing would be in their life, He knew heartache would be there, Fathers know. Yet Joseph, full of faith, was faithful to pour His love on the ones who needed it.
The innkeeper, so done with every person that walked to his door and asked for room. He had none of it. But this couple that gave Him a strange sense of peace, full of faith, that the 'yes' in His heart might change his life that night. And He faithfully said yes, to the family, and the new baby He would begin to follow.

That night, everyone involved in the story, I believe, was weary. They were so tired of waiting, so at the end of their rope. And that is when the Baby was born. In the exact place where everyone needed to be reminded of the call to be faithful. They were given fulfillment to their belief in something bigger.
That baby was hope incarnate.

The night was so long ago, but it doesn't lose it's magic. We are reminded of the beauty in every child's excited eyes. I can see the Hope every time I see the broken look up from their weeping and remember this day is for them.

My mom adored the song O Come All Ye Faithful. And I think it was because it spoke to many places of her life.
This song seems to speak to those who have completed their walk, Jesus in heaven saying "O come, my faithful, joyful and triumphant. Come and enter in to the rest."
But it speaks to us too. It speaks to those of us who are still in the grime, the fear and this painful world.
The song says to us, "Come to me, those of you who are full of faith. Come and I will teach you where joy comes from. Come and we will triumph together. Come for you are not alone. Come, for I love you. Come."

The song ends with the simplistic, beautiful refrain. O Come Let Us Adore Him.
This one is a call to those of us who are in every walk of life. Come, Let's Adore Him. He came to heal our brokenness, He came to bind up our wounds. He came to Hold us.
He stepped down from Heaven into our broken, sinful world. He laid in a manger, in the womb of a virgin, so that He could Love us.
His death aside, I think His entrance into our lives is the most simplistic. Easter is His Sacrifice screaming to our sinful lives saying, "I have come to redeem!" Easter is our sin bared upon His sinless body.
But Christmas, is His gentle entrance into our lives. Meeting us where we are at. Promising more to come.
Maybe You are at the beginning of your walk with Christ and He just casually walked into your life.
Maybe You are midway and tragedy has struck. Maybe someone you loved dearly has gone too soon.
Maybe you are at the end, and you cannot wait for Jesus to look you in the eyes and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Wherever you are, He will meet you.

Like I said, this song, spoke to many areas of my mom's life. It spoke to her in the beginning when life was seemingly perfect.
And it continued to speak to her when she sat in a doctor's office and they diagnosed her with a cancer that would eventually take her life. It spoke to her and cancer crept in and stole her breath away, but never stole her Life.
It spoke to her in the end, when Jesus looked her in the eyes and say, "Come, my faithful One."
And now this song has fallen to me. Right in the middle. Right in the middle of grief and pain and waiting. The message that Jesus is speaking to me is one that says, "I know your tired, I know it's hard. I know. But I love you, And I will show you how to thrive, we will be triumphant together. Come, Leah, full of faith, full of life, come, and I will give you rest."
With that message, I can't help but adore him. With how I've seen Him work, I can't help but long to spread this message around the world, "Oh come, Let us adore Him."