God’s Word tells us that Heaven will be a restoration of Eden.  The picture of eternity that was given to John in the final chapters of this great Word is one that brings together all that was beautiful there and perfects it, restores it to it’s intended glory.  God made something beautiful, we dirtied it up, He restores it to it’s intended glorious state.

That’s Christmas.

Today my thoughts are rather personal.  I concede to this.  But a picture that spans from Adam and Eve, to a baby in a feeding trough, to a girl with electronics on her lap, to an eternity of awe and wonder, that is one that must be powerful.  It survives forever.

As I made a long drive home yesterday I rode along an incredible sunset as I listened to one of the most beautiful songs ever written, Pachelbel’s Canon in D (my favorite).  I begin to ponder.  It was breathtaking.  It was beauty and perfection and flawlessness.  It was on this earth and yet smacking of Eden.  It was life restored.

Christmas is all about restoration.  God created man to walk with Him, commune with Him, share eternity with Him.  He made something beautiful.  We messed it up.  We dirtied His beautiful plan.  Step three is about all that is predictable about my God.  He restores.  He creates, we mess up, He restores.

We lost our ability to be the beautiful things that God created us to be–perfect image-bearers, flawless friends of the Living God.  And we had no way back, the price was simply too steep.  So God made a plan.

He sent Christmas to restore us to Himself, to give us the opportunity to return to the glorious state that we were created to occupy, to bring back to us all the joy of fellowship with our God and King.  He sent His Son as a baby that we might be restored, and that the whole earth might find it’s perfection in eternity through His offering.

I spent the day in the company of those with whom God is restoring relationships. I watched as He gave me this inspiring picture painted across a darkening sky of how breathtaking restoration can be.  As I write these words, a family waits with eager excitement as a child will join their family, restoring life and promise to them all.  The year winds down, the death toll of winter, chimes the coming of newness on the horizon.  In the very seasons of our years and lives, God reveals the pattern of restoration.

From the curse pronounced in the Garden, God has been revealing a plan much older than even that.  He has been making known what lengths He would go to to restore that which was tainted.  We muddied the water, He cleanses it anew.

At what might we aim if we desire to hit the target of eternal significance this Christmas season?  The spirit of restoration, the making new of that which has grown old and sullied.  I’ve often marveled at the variations of that Christmas song that says, “faithful friends who are near (dear) to us, will be dear (near) to us once more.”  Judy Garland says the ones ‘who are near will be dear’, other artists usually say ‘dear to us are near to us.’  I used to think that it was so funny that she misspoke and they never went back to fix it.  I’ve come to change my tune.  I think that she too had an eye for restoration.  Restoring to their intended state the relationships that have grown old and sullied with time.

When Christ came down, He brought restoration; restoring the beauty and purpose and glory and intention and meaningfulness and love and perfection that He created everything to hold.  Restoration of lives–lives too that have grown old and sullied; of relationships; of nature, long abused and undervalued; of fellowship.

May I see the spirit of restoration at work around me this season.  May I bask in the beauty of a plan that makes it possible for me to walk in moments of Edenic perfection with a God who both made and bought me.  May I follow His example and let restoration come, even at the cost of letting the old and sullied fall away. May I look with awe at the newness and beauty that He can recreate from that which I have tainted.