Praise the Lord for this Wednesday. We will gather for our Mid-week service with a very special dinner prepared by Chef Lawrence, followed by Bible Study and Choir practice. Our granddaughter Micah called me yesterday from Boston, all excited, and announced to me with great joy that got their fresh Christmas tree yesterday. Alice and I went in haste and made our annual holy pilgrimage to one of local Christmas tree farms yesterday after 4.30 PM and tagged a beautiful 9.5 feet tree. It is an almost perfect tree. It was a beautiful day followed by a glorious evening. Alice and I took our daily walk for over 4 miles between 7 and 8.30 PM. When we walk almost during the night it makes the very short autumn and winter days very long.
Jesus is the Lord of time. He transcends time and space, yet He is involved in time and space. He intervenes in our time and space with His blessings. This is why, "when the time was right, God sent his Son, and a woman gave birth to him" (Galatians 4:4). In Galatians 4, Paul seized the moment with an early confession of faith drawn from the worship and proclamation of the Christian congregations of the mid first century AD. When the time was exactly right, a child was born. A son was given. And He was given the name Everlasting Father.
Paul asserted, "…that God is our Father" (v.6b). In the Gospel of John, chapter 1 it is written, "As many as received Him to them He gave the authority to be come sons and daughters of God". In Jesus Christ we are children of a God who is a Father, and He is also a Father who is a God. He is Everlasting. This is such a paradox. In the Manger was a Baby who is a Father. This is beyond human comprehension. This same Father is "from everlasting to everlasting," to borrow language from the Psalms.
What Do we Need This Christmas? Through this Child we are granted what we really need, life as it comes to us from a Father who lasts forever. We have in Jesus God, who is revealed as the Everlasting Father( Isaiah 9) All of our toys, gadgets, clothes, all the things of this earthly life aren't going to last forever. A relationship with Bethlehem's Child does. This Child introduces us to an Eternal Father who always provides what we need, (not what want, but what we need).
Moreover, our relationship with this Everlasting Father is such that we, His adopted children, can come into His presence. All of us who are in Christ are children of God. We aren't orphaned! He really is our Father. He really does embody perfect Fatherhood.. He is the kind of Father,who wants us to come to Him with our grief, our trouble, our anxiety and our hopelessness as we confront the reality of things not lasting forever.
While editing notes in The Quest Study Bible, Marshall Shelley underwent a test of faith. His wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter who was severely retarded and completely invalid. Eighteen months later, a second child was born who lived for only one minute. Six months after that, their first child died. Shelley said he was obligated to ask God his most honest questions. He said, "God's not offended by that. In fact, He invites it!"
Only an "Everlasting Father" could invite us to bring to Him all the emotional and spiritual junk that we've been carting around for years. This Everlasting Father born in Bethlehem's barn grew to die and be resurrected from the dead so we could make it through this earthly life, a life that is cruel where children are sometimes born retarded, where children sometimes die from hunger and disease, where children are abused by earthly parents and the system of slick and sick greed and exploitation. It's a world in which we "big children" have gotten our priorities all fouled up, thinking we really need something, when, in reality, we know we don't need it at all. Each of us suffers from the harshness of this earthly life.
I'm so glad there is an Everlasting Father who listens to us and provides for us. He grants to us what we need, and He knows what we need better than we know ourselves. The Lord God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, the Babe of Bethlehem, is the Everlasting Father who knows best. So when you are tempted to rely upon the provision of the world, I invite you to remember the provision that comes from Jesus Chris, a Child.
We are so blesed because of Jesus.
Brown
http://youtu.be/DSlIx7xqANg
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Sponsored by: The Union Center United Methodist Church, Endicott.
4-6 PM Living Nativity, with live animals and full Nativity cast
Across from the First Presbyterian Church of Endicott.
The Corner of McKinley Ave and Monroe Street . Endicott
Praise and Worship Service
First United Methodist Church, Endicott
Sponsored by Union Center UMC
6 PM Gathering - Coffee - Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship
Music: Laureen Naik
Speaker: Rev. Earle Cowden
Christmas Eve Candlelight Service
4:30 PM at First United Methodist, 53 McKinley, Endicott
Music: Aric Phinney and Yancey Moore
Preacher: Rev Brown Naik
Christmas Eve Candlelight Service
A Service of Carols, Candles, and Communion
7:30 PM at Union Center United Methodist Church, 128 Maple Drive
Music: Laureen Naik, Betty Phinney, Sarah and Emily Sabin
Preacher: Rev. Brown Naik
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