The message of Christmas is God's call

The Christmas story tells of the extraordinary actions of God who loves His people so much that He was prepared to enter our human history- as a baby. John's gospel doesn't include any of the details we've become familiar with- the donkey, manger, shepherds or kings- but instead meditates on the perhaps unfamiliar truth of this incredible act of God becoming man:

The Life-Light was the real thing:
    Every person entering Life
    he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
    the world was there through him,
    and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people,
    but they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him,
    who believed he was who he claimed
    and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
    their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
    not blood-begotten,
    not flesh-begotten,
    not sex-begotten.

14 The Word became flesh and blood,
    and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
    the one-of-a-kind glory,
    like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
    true from start to finish.

(John 1: 9-14, The Message)

God's call is to each one of us- He has shown us already how much He loves us, and what lengths He is prepared to go to in order to reach us. 

Paul knew this, through his own experience of God calling him. This Advent, can we hear God's call to us?

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven
No ear may hear His coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him still
The dear Christ enters in