Dear Fellow Children of God,
I enjoy watching Christmas movies during the holiday
season. Usually I prefer the older
movies to the newer ones. One of the
Movies I watched this past week was “Miracle on 34th Street.” Perhaps you know that the plot of this movie
revolves around the struggle of a young girl and her mother to believe in
Santa.
The saving actions of God call us to believe. But Christmas is a call to believe in God’s
actions in real, historic events. The
birth of Jesus is not a made up story.
Jesus is a man who lived in history.
Scripture is not the only source that attests to the historic life of
Jesus, but He is also spoken of by many outside the Bible, even by those outside
the Christian church.
The events of Christmas call us to believe, not so much
that Jesus was born and lived on this earth, but rather they call us to believe
that this baby born in Bethlehem was indeed the Son of God Himself, the Savior
of the world. To accept this wonderful,
world-changing truth takes more than just historic knowledge. Such faith means accepting and trusting that
God created and loves the world, and that God is working even now in Jesus to
love us and to save us. Faith and belief
that God is working is more difficult than just knowing the facts of history.
But, the fact that our holy and righteous God broke into
our sinful world and into our troubled lives is such great good news that God
gives help to people who might struggle to believe. You see, the people in Jesus’ time also
struggled with believing in what God was doing.
Thankfully, God’s help to people at the time of Jesus’ birth still opens
our eyes in wonder and sparks faith in our hearts.
Consider the wonders of that first Christmas, the special
actions of God that help doubting hearts and minds to realize that, “Yes, God
is really acting to bring His comforting and saving love into our painful
world.”
First, in order to share this good news God sends angels,
lot of angels to lots of different people!
Angels appear to Zechariah and to Mary in Luke 1, and to Joseph in
Matthew 1 and in Matthew 2. Then a whole
army of angels appears to common working class shepherds pulling the night
shift in Luke 2. The Greek word “angel”
means “messenger.” The message of God
from all these angels is that God has good news! This baby, born in Bethlehem, is God’s Son
and the Savior of the world.
If the angels weren’t special enough, God comes to us in
a once in history manner, with Jesus being delivered in birth by a virgin, a
young woman who had never had a sexual relationship with a man! That is impossible in any other
situation. But, as the angel Gabriel
tells Mary, “nothing is impossible with God,” (Luke 1:37) And this seemingly
impossible birth not only allows Jesus to be our Savior because he was born
without the sinful nature with which we all struggle, but this virgin birth also
calls us in wonder to gaze at the marvels of God before us.
Then the child Jesus is visited by foreign dignitaries. Magi, or wise men, come from a part of the
world east of Israel following a star whose properties are unique. This special Christmas star points the wise
men and us to the Lord’s loving acts of salvation. This star and these special visitors also
shout out that God is doing something really special.
But this is not all, when Jesus is 40 days old and presented
in the temple according to Jewish law, the elderly believer, Simeon, and the
aged prophetess, Anna, sing the praises of God because of His wondrous,
merciful, acts of salvation in the birth of Jesus.
All of these people had questions. But all of them, Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, the
shepherds, the wise men, Anna, and Simeon, not only came to trust God’s world
saving acts of love in Jesus, but these people all spoke and sang His praises
as well.
So, this Christmas God calls us to faith as we again hear
and consider all the signs of God that He is acting mightily to give His love
in Jesus. God doesn’t just want us to
know Jesus was a man who lived 2000 years ago.
He wants us to believe and to trust that this baby is the promised
Messiah, the son of God Himself, become a man.
God wants us to know that Jesus brings God’s love and joy, His
forgiveness and peace, His salvation and eternal life to us.
Believing all this can be difficult at times. But, think about it for a minute. If your heart is warmed and your eyes grow
misty at a fictional story of Christmas magic on the TV screen, should not the
special signs and messengers of God in history move our hearts to faith and to
thankfulness and to praise?
Christmas blessings to all of you from me and from my
family.
A Child of God, Finding Joy and Faith in
God’s Special Signs and Messages Surrounding Jesus’ Birth,
Pastor Jonathan
P.P.S. I have no fish pictures this week. This past Monday I was in the hospital with
Kathy for surgery on her back. The
surgery was postponed and later performed on Friday morning. I am thankful for all prayers for full and
quick recovery.
P.P.P.S. If you got my devotion late last week, I was
again struggling with my e-mail server because of the number of e-mails I
send. The devotion was written, but
would not send. However, I think I have
that figured out again.
****
ABOUT ‘THOUGHTS FROM THE
PASTOR’ - I am sending these e-mail messages, hopefully weekly, to
all St. John members and friends whose e-mails I have. (I am regularly
adding new names of friends and members – in case you are just receiving this
e-mail for the first time.) However, if you don’t want to receive this
e-mail, please let me know, and I’ll gladly leave your name off my list for
this message.
****
No comments:
Post a Comment