December 17, 2018
Luke 2:5-6
Luke 2:6, “ While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby.”
Prepare:
• to make ready beforehand for some purpose, use, or activity
• to put in a proper state of mind
• to work out the details
• plan in advance
• to put together
• to put into written form
• to get ready
In this third week of Advent, we celebrate “JOY” and the word emphasized today is “prepare.” Is there joy in preparing or perhaps preparing is joyful! Our writer describes her experience of becoming a mother, I’m am quite sure that some of you know exactly what she is talking about and most likely experienced it for yourselves. I have not had any children and yet I can grasp the concept and imagine what it might be like. No matter our backgrounds, we have all experienced something that was not a priority in life that became a priority, something that is your “baby.” I’ve heard people make reference to their cars as their “baby,” they make it a priority to keep it clean, safe and running tip-top! The same is true for homes, boats, bikes, jobs, special activities or performances. The common denominator is we do all within our power to safeguard that one “thing!” No to diminish having nice things or doing well, my question is “Where is God? Where is Jesus? Where is the Holy Spirit?” The One who sacrificed everything for us, are we protecting and safeguarding the gift of salvation? Just as a woman prepares for having a baby, we must prepare for our life as children of God. We don’t learn everything all at once, it takes “baby steps.” Just as humans learn and grow and make advances in knowledge, so will a Christian in their walk with Jesus. Are we cultivating the kind of return that we want. Nothing compares to Jesus and His love for us. This Christmas season is about the birth of Jesus, it tells of Mary and Joseph preparing for their unborn son, and trusting in God’s plan and timing.
Prayer: Lord, my life echo your grace. Amen
~Peace and Blessings~
References:
The C. S. Lewis Bible NRSV
Additional material – Thoughts of C.S.Lewis:
One Grand Miracle
http://www.cslewis.com/one-grand-miracle/
C. S. Lewis loved the story of the birth of Christ. In fact, he argued that the one Grand Miracle of Christianity is not the Crucifixion or the Resurrection, but Christ’s birth. He saw every other miracle of Scripture as preparing for, demonstrating, or resulting from, the Incarnation.
Obviously our Lord would not have suffered the cross or led humankind from the grave if he had not been born.
Lewis calls a miracle, “an interference with Nature by supernatural power.” Thank God, he does interfere in our world! Left to our own instincts, I we go our own way. God became one of us because he yearns to make us one with him. That’s why God has been miraculously interfering for millennia. Just for starters, think of Abraham and Sarah becoming parents late in life, the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, or the rescue of Daniel from the lions. Perhaps you have experienced a miracle in your own life. But none of these, remarkable though they were, were as important as the Incarnation.
While we believe that God is near, Christ is in us, the Holy Spirit has been poured out on us, God remains hidden in these miracles. With the birth of Jesus, God becomes visible in a tiny body for a mother to hold, for shepherds to admire, for magi to worship. He Himself is the miracle! “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), Jesus said. The Word became flesh. He became one of us-his Grand Miracle! Let us-who recognize the Miracle-bow the knee.
Lord, give us a new appreciation of the Grand Miracle, your coming to Earth, this Advent season. Amen.
Lewis wrote “…the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left.” (“The Grand Miracle,” God in the Dock, 80)
Posted on December 1, 2014 by admin
This entry was posted in Joel Heck and tagged Christmas, God in the Dock, Miracles.
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