So this is Christmas

The story of the birth of Jesus is just....lovely hope.  Love-filled hope that came.

Simple and pure.

The world waits on for this night.  We wait, we hope.

The Messiah is born, perfect and holy, in humility. Anointed. Our Savior.

The story just begins really...or continues. Isaiah, Micah, and Jeremiah all foretold this day when God's own Son would be born on earth. Many didn't have enough faith to believe.  They wrote truth over 400 years ago before we had Facebook and Twitter.

I love how God involved the lowly to tell his most important news. He trusts us all with the message of Christ.

In the midst of this dark, hopeless, yearning world, Jesus was born, on a most silent night.

All of heaven breathes life into a lifeless world. 

 Holy has come. 

The Heavens declare God's glory.  Our hearts sing...

Come let us adore Him....

Hope has arrived, and is swaddled in some baby blankets. So beautiful...and Heaven sent.

The Word became Flesh.

Our redemption began in a stable.    A foretaste of eternity with God.

How do we prepare for spending time with the Glorious?

We prepare our hearts continually...we willingly let His love change us. That's why Jesus came, for redemption of all mankind, but also to make us imitators of Holy, those that carry the name of Salvation.

What comes down this Christmas time is God's love — and the way to receive His love doesn't need us to wrap anything up — but to unwrap your heart before Him.  

Let the Glorious change you. Take in the Holy, the sweet fragrance of new life.

When we unwrap this kind of love it transforms us. Let it burn like a flame inside our overworked, worn and weary, most weak and feeble hearts.

Let the cares of this day, your life, your over-spent budget exhale and take in the Divine.

Advent – this season prepares us to take in the Holy breathe of Heaven, to dwell in us, to live inside us, to bring a Heavenly love anew, refresh us and it prepares us.

We ready for our finale, our ending with His beginning, His beginning prepares us for our ending.

And....what a glorious greeting we will have. Glimpse the holy at the stable, see pure simple, the breathing Life that prepares your heart room for a glimpse of heaven.

Oh how He loves us so...to send us Jesus...

How can we prepare to receive the infinite in our finite hearts? In our weak frames, the strong shoot of Jesse?

The best gift we could possibly need in the most unlikely place.

Because He loves us so......and because He loved us first...

His Love came to us....wrapped for us, to unwrap our lives

We prepare by letting Christ undo our hearts and give Him our all.

In our undone-ness then we can feel Christmas love come down and hope invade our hearts. In the welling of our hearts and in the wrapping of our souls. In the middle of our preparations, He prepares us with the only thing we need...

His love and redemption...and grace.  Grace binds us for the eternal and bridges us to eternity. And it prepares us to for our end Hope.

My prayer: Lord, thank You for speaking to us through Your Word and Your prophets and strengthening our faith. Thank you for making the first move, thank you for connecting the dots of history through the ages, through the circumstances. Piercing the dark world to connect our sin with your redemption. Thank you for sending hope to the hopeless, the whole forgiveness, the complete wholeness that we all crave. Thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you for your indwelling in us lowly creatures that desperately need your grace. Thank you for your mercy upon us. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for bringing hope to our world. Thank you for your endless love. Amen.

Merry Happy Christmas as you receive Heaven.

When God welcomes the outcasts

I'll never forget the look of surprise on their faces when the angel appeared to the young shepherds two dialog pages early. The angel was nervous and jumped ahead of his cue.  

It was a Christmas program that I will never forget.

The shepherds were costumed and ready in place waiting for the heavenly greeting that they and their angelic counterpart had practiced Sunday after Sunday afternoon.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’” -Luke 2:8-12

Those young lads were certainly terrified.  They didn't know what to do.  Should they stop the production with their hesitant-so-well-rehearsed lines or just pick up where the premature participant had propelled the program earlier than planned.

I have to wonder if that is what the real shepherds felt on that hillside in the dark.

Frightened.

I don't know about you but an angelic greeting of this nature would certainly be a surprise.  No....I would have been terrified as well.

Can't you feel your heart pounding right now as you read about this holy delivery?

It just seems to make sense that you are on the hillside, watching for ravenous prey, when all of a sudden in the 4th watch of the night, on your shepherd watch, something freaky like this happens.

A brilliant chorus singing praises, a display of God's magnificent glory displayed in the heavens...

I would've been shocked, all the while pinching myself, wondering if I had died and gone to the feet of Jesus.

In Luke 2, when an angel appears to shepherds, the glory of the Lord is upon the outcasts.  

God even sees the lowly shepherds.

His glory surrounds them and calls them to be the messengers for the most important announcement of this world.  

"Unto you is born a Savior...."    

The angels depict the glory of the Lord so well.  Talk about an "O Holy Night"!  This had to be the most brilliant of all nightly light productions.  The mother of all light shows, and one heavenly billboard that would leave a lasting soul print.  

Life-changing.

This scene has become so familiar to us.  We have rehearsed it year after year, lyric after lyric, program after program.

But I hope you see everything changes with this glorious delivery.  

The glory of the Lord rarely appeared to people. And from what we read, it was indeed very frightening to say the least.  When the glory of the Lord appeared in the temple, the priests dared not even enter. When the glory of the Lord appeared on the mountain, the Israelites compared it to a consuming fire.

And now these appointed hosts, these heavenly beings, God's glory, was surrounding some stinking low-life outcasts of society, the untouchables, a left out group of people, the ones that handled the dumbest animals.  Most of the religious sect wouldn't have given a holy nod to.

Maybe you feel like the one of them right now.  

Their profession made it virtually impossible to follow the oppressively detailed religious laws. A shepherd is on duty 24-7, always in the field, and their duties keep them away tied to their low-paying job. 

They didn't get to participate in the normal Old Testament religious festivals.

I imagine their responsibilities took true grit and manly rugged skills.

I am struck by this part of the Christ story.  The most important news of all of time goes to the shepherds first, the most ordinary of mankind.

With the birth of Jesus, God tore the curtain between heaven and earth and ripped apart human expectations of who was worthy to be in His presence.  God sent His glory to outcasts to tell the world from their mountain top that the Savior, a King was born.  

The Light of the World started with the most dim. Glory pierces the darkness.  What was kept only for the most practiced religious people, came for us all.

The news is indeed brilliant.  

Hope, the message that the world needs, is God's brilliant message.

Come and join the heavenly chorus, for even the outcast proclaimed the news.

Glory pierces and warms our hearts with the most heavenly chorus.

My prayer:  Dear God, Thank you for your loving reminders of how Christ broke through the divide. Bring us into Your presence. Help us know how we are loved and welcomed by your grace, no matter how we feel.  May we see your Glory this advent season.  Empower us to spread the birth message like a fire within us.  Bring those who are feeling outcast, or unloved, or left out this Christmas into our lives and churches so that they may see their place in Your story too. Amen.