From the UCC Network: Devotional for 12/24 "Home for the Holidays"

Home for the Holidays 

Excerpt from Zephaniah 3:14-20

“I will bring you home.”

Reflection by Ron Buford

It’s Christmas Eve and I ask you, “What exile are you bringing home for Christmas?”

Is it easier to talk about making peace between Israel and Palestine, about international cease-fires, about bringing full marriage rights to same-gender loving people, about freeing Tibet and illegal aliens than it is to forgive someone who betrayed you, or a family member or friend who hurt, violated, embarrassed you or let you down?

You think making peace is easy. So, what exile are you bringing home for Christmas?

It’s time.

Bring an exile home. Make peace without conditions.

Think you cannot do it?

Oh! Are you the exile? You can’t forgive yourself for something? God says, “It’s time to bring the exile home.”

If this nation can put a Black man in the White House, with a mix of northern and southern states, then you and I can make peace – with ourselves, with others, with the world.

It’s time.

God has taken away judgments against us. We have escaped disasters’ worst. Those who aimed to hurt us have not totally overcome us. Our fortunes are beginning to be restored . . . and you and I can make peace.

Prayer 

Gracious God, Help me do the thing I really do not think I can do. Help me make peace. I do not have the power or the will to do it. Please give me the strength, the courage, the wisdom, and opportunity to make a healthy and lasting peace with some exile in my life this holiday. Amen.

About the Author Ron Buford, former coordinator of the UCC’s God is still speaking campaign, currently serves as Director of Development for the Northern California Nevada Conference. A consultant, group leader and speaker, he appears in Living the Questions: Resourcing Progressive Christians.