Dear Friends,
I know most (at least emotionally) have moved beyond Christmas by now. Yet, I like to remind people we still have until Saturday (January 6th or “Three Kings Day”) before we arrive at the 12th Day of Christmas. On that day many in the world still celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men at the house where Jesus was living when they showed up with their gifts about 1.5 years after His birth (Mt. 2:1-12). So, yes, traditionally the Christmas season does not end until January 6th – the day on which many still give their gifts to one another, mimicking the actions of the Magi giving theirs to Jesus.
And since we are still in the Christmas season for two more days, I wanted to share a thought about Christmas written by a member of my church – Allison Stitzinger. It is a short yet insightful summary of why we so desperately need Christmas. It would be hard to summarize it better. Enjoy.
“Oh, how we need Christmas. How desperately we need it.
When everything is broken and we can’t get away from the chaos and death and grief, in this never-ending moment of aching, how we need Christmas.
Christmas comes as a pinpoint of light in the dark, a new hope where there was only despair, the acknowledgement that yes, things are bad, but they can be set right, and they will be.
Christmas comes with a whisper on the wind that rescue is coming.
Christmas comes with the sweeping relief that the solution for our brokenness doesn’t come from finding some inner strength or hidden human goodness, but from outside ourselves.
Christmas comes to turn everything we thought we knew upside-down; to show us that the things that truly change and restore come quietly and in the most unexpected places. It invites the poor and the ostracized, the foreigner and the outsider, the small and the unimportant, the unheard and the unseen into the story of humanity’s redemption.
Christmas comes with an open hand full of hope. In our hour of greatest need Christmas beckons, “Come and see!”
Come see the new thing that is being done. Come be transformed. Come let yourself be an agent of restoration. Come and be swept away by a God who submitted himself to the indignities of humanity in order to set right what we have broken. We so dearly need Christmas, and praise God, Christmas is only the beginning.”
May your last two days of Christmas (three if you count today!) continue to remind you that Christ has come! Emmanuel, God in the flesh, came, not just to save (in the sense of being brought by grace into His presence forever in heaven) but to spread light where there is darkness (Is. 9:1-6). To restore, change, and transform the hearts, minds, and lives of people who would otherwise be “without God and without hope in this world” (Eph. 2:13).
Living Throughout the Year in the Hope Christmas Gives Us, Pastor Jeff
I know most (at least emotionally) have moved beyond Christmas by now. Yet, I like to remind people we still have until Saturday (January 6th or “Three Kings Day”) before we arrive at the 12th Day of Christmas. On that day many in the world still celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men at the house where Jesus was living when they showed up with their gifts about 1.5 years after His birth (Mt. 2:1-12). So, yes, traditionally the Christmas season does not end until January 6th – the day on which many still give their gifts to one another, mimicking the actions of the Magi giving theirs to Jesus.
And since we are still in the Christmas season for two more days, I wanted to share a thought about Christmas written by a member of my church – Allison Stitzinger. It is a short yet insightful summary of why we so desperately need Christmas. It would be hard to summarize it better. Enjoy.
“Oh, how we need Christmas. How desperately we need it.
When everything is broken and we can’t get away from the chaos and death and grief, in this never-ending moment of aching, how we need Christmas.
Christmas comes as a pinpoint of light in the dark, a new hope where there was only despair, the acknowledgement that yes, things are bad, but they can be set right, and they will be.
Christmas comes with a whisper on the wind that rescue is coming.
Christmas comes with the sweeping relief that the solution for our brokenness doesn’t come from finding some inner strength or hidden human goodness, but from outside ourselves.
Christmas comes to turn everything we thought we knew upside-down; to show us that the things that truly change and restore come quietly and in the most unexpected places. It invites the poor and the ostracized, the foreigner and the outsider, the small and the unimportant, the unheard and the unseen into the story of humanity’s redemption.
Christmas comes with an open hand full of hope. In our hour of greatest need Christmas beckons, “Come and see!”
Come see the new thing that is being done. Come be transformed. Come let yourself be an agent of restoration. Come and be swept away by a God who submitted himself to the indignities of humanity in order to set right what we have broken. We so dearly need Christmas, and praise God, Christmas is only the beginning.”
May your last two days of Christmas (three if you count today!) continue to remind you that Christ has come! Emmanuel, God in the flesh, came, not just to save (in the sense of being brought by grace into His presence forever in heaven) but to spread light where there is darkness (Is. 9:1-6). To restore, change, and transform the hearts, minds, and lives of people who would otherwise be “without God and without hope in this world” (Eph. 2:13).
Living Throughout the Year in the Hope Christmas Gives Us, Pastor Jeff
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