Since we're so close to
Christmas (and I know I won't have time to send a thought next Tuesday)
I decided to send some of my favorite collected 'thoughts'
regarding Christmas.
I do want to wish you all
the best for the holiday season and pray that a midst the busyness and
preparations and gift buying and wrapping you'll be able to keep your heart
centered on that which is most important -- the miracle of the incarnation we
celebrate, or the miracle that is Jesus. As the well-known Christmas carol
admonishes us, "Come let us adore
Him, Christ, the Lord." Enjoy.
"...God descends to
re-ascend... He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time
and space, down into humanity. Down to the very roots and sea-bed of the nature
He has created. But He goes down to come up again, and bring the ruined world
up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower, to
get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to
lift, He must almost disappear under the load before He incredibly straightens
his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on His shoulders." C. S. Lewis
"Let this Christmas
season be a renewing of the mind of Christ in our thinking, and a cleansing of
our lives by His pure presence. Let His joy come to our weary world through
us." Gerald Kennedy
"The fact of Jesus'
coming is the final and unanswerable proof that God cares." William Barclay
"It is here, in the
thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the most profound unfathomable
depths of the Christian revelation lie. God became man;... the Almighty
appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and
stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to
talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it
gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the
incarnation." J. I.
Packer
"Christmas can be a
difficult time for those who carry the burden of hard work, stressful family
situations, and personal loss. But we should remember that Christ came into our
world to lift up all who are bowed down... 'To proclaim that captives will be released...'
(Luke 4:18). Jesus came to lift our burdens so we can raise our eyes to
welcome Him at Christmas."
David McCasland
"The purpose and cause
of the incarnation was that He might illuminate the world with His wisdom and
excite it to the love of Himself." Peter Abelard
"The Son of God
became a man to enable men to become sons of God." C. S. Lewis
"Take Christ out of
Christmas, and December becomes the bleakest and most colorless month of the
year." A. F. Wells
"This is Christmas:
not the tinsel, not the giving and receiving, not even the carols, but the
humble heart that receives anew the wondrous gift, the Christ." Frank McKibben
"This Advent we look
to the wise men to teach us where to focus our attention. We set our
sights on things above, where God is. We draw closer to Jesus... [And]
When our journey ends and we reach the place where Jesus resides in Bethlehem,
may we, like the Wise Men, fall on our knees and adore Him as our true and only
King." Mark Zimmermann
"For the great and
powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails
them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls, from which they shy
away. These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ. No powerful person
dares approach the manger, and this even includes King Herod. For this is
where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish, because God is with
the lowly. Here the rich come to nothing, because God is with the poor
and the hungry, but the rich and the satisfied He sends away empty. Before
Mary, the maid, before the manger of Christ, before God in lowliness, the
powerful come to naught; they have no right, no hope, they are judged." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"The hinge of history
is on the door of a Bethlehem stable." Ralph W. Sockman
Many advocate dropping the
name "Christmas" and instead using the phrase "The Holiday
Season." But such a tactic still fails to bring about its intended
end. For the word "holiday" is a compound word that comes
from the two words, "holy" and "day."
So that's fine with me. It
is a "holy day." A day dedicated to God and set apart for
a sacred purpose. It gives me an even better opportunity to share,
and opens the door for me to explain what makes it holy. I plan to take
advantage of each one! I trust you will too.
With warmest regards and
earnest prayers that you may enjoy a Christ-centered, Christ-filled
and thus joyous celebration of the day, Pastor Jeff
