Skip to main content

Christmas 2019

Good morning and Merry Christmas to each and all of you.

2000-ish years ago, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob decided that the time had come to join us again on this planet He had made for us. This time, rather than hovering over the waters, He overshadowed a young girl. This time, rather than appearing in a Temple made of stone, He appeared within a human temple so that He could not just live with us, but be one of us. This time, He came as a child to portend the kind of life He would live among us. This time, we would see God as the image we are made and called to be. This time, in showing us God, He would show us, us.

This coming we know was promised. Promised as grace to relieve, to redeem, to reconcile. This child is Messiah, the Promised and Anointed One who in living among us would show us the way. The way of God, the way to God, the way in God. The Life in God that He offered and offers today.

He offers the way to become a child, the incarnated God 's very image and likeness. He will eventually live the way among us and take up his home in us. Paul will be in pangs of childbirth until Christ is formed, lives, and is matured in us.

You and Mary, the objects of the Spirit's coming. Her to bear Him intimately within her until He is formed in your likeness; yours to bear Him within you until you become His likeness, formed intimately in you. Mary is known as Theotokos and in that, invites you too to become a Theotokos, a God-bearer for the world.

Yes, God has done miraculous things today. He will do even more miraculous things in you. The times have reached their fulfillment and it is time that God, fully formed in His disciples, leads all who will, to the Life God has always wanted for you. 

I hope you all have a great Christmas. As you open those gifts, remember The Gift and notice the God-people around you. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Passover, The First Born, Abraham, and You

Israel has been in captivity in Egypt, Moses has completed his contests with Pharaoh, and the People of Israel have been expelled from Egypt. The death of Egyptian firstborn children and livestock has compelled their removal into the wilderness. At the end of Exodus 12, God institutes the Passover in remembrance of the Angel of Death passing by the homes of Jews on the night the Egyptian firstborn children were killed. Notably, they were spared if in a house with blood around the door.  The Passover is established for Israel herself, including their slaves who have been circumcised. If a sojourner wants to celebrate the Passover with you, he can after he circumcises all males with him. I suspect that pretty much eliminated any visitors participating. In chapter 13, the protocols include redeeming Israel's firstborn. In this discussion, God says your firstborn belongs to God, and you must redeem your firstborn or you must kill it. God has redeemed Israel's firstborn by the blood...

Wineskins II

       In chapter 16 of Matthew, Peter ‘makes the great confession’ - Jesus he says is the Son of the Living God. At Covenant, when someone wants to become a member or to be baptized, we ask them who Jesus is and we expect this response. Peter is correct when he says this, but it is not clear that Peter (or the other disciples) understood the ramifications of his statement. Following Peter’s statement we find a series of incidents that make us wonder just how much Peters actually believed what he had said.      In the first instance, Jesus compares Peter to Satan. Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem and there he will die. Peter exclaims that he will not let that happen; Jesus will not be killed. Peter is expecting great things from Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God on behalf of Israel and he cannot fit Jesus dying into his hope for a greater Israel under this Messiah. This cannot happen, he reasons. Jesus’s response is a harsh re...

Faith to Faith

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." (Romans 1.16-17, ESV) There are various renderings and understandings of the phrase as it is used here, "faith for faith." Both words for faith derive from pistis, with the first being pisteos (genitive) and the second, pistin (accusative) . Faith, we are told, begins in faith and leads to faith. The import of this origin and fulfillment is found in the next sentence above, the righteous shall live by faith (genitive). We might word this as "already held or possessed faith will result in or lead to faith. As it is written, the one who has faith will parlay that faith into a salvific faith. Faith held by the believer will lead the believer to greater or more complete faith, resulting in her s...