Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day. The Lord blessed us with a beautiful day of Wednesday gathering yesterday. "Young at Heart", our seniors of the Church gathered for their annual Christmas celebration yesterday noon. The Wednesday Bible Study group gathered for our weekly fellowship and study. It being the Pearl Harbor day yesterday, we watched a powerful and anointed Video presentation on Pearl Harbor. Our youth are gathering tomorrow for their Christmas celebration. Praise the Lord for many service men and women who will be coming home for Christmas. It is a glorious scene when we see members of our armed forces come home for Christmas
"I'll be back soon," a World War II soldier told his wife before leaving her and their infant son. Five years of war and fighting went by. The young mother would show her boy a portrait of the soldier and say, "See, that's your daddy. One day he's going to come home." In reality, she didn't know what to expect. One morning the boy said, Mommy, wouldn't it be great if Daddy would just step out of the picture frame?"
In a sense that's what God did 2000 years ago. As part of His eternal plan, He stepped out of heaven and became a man so you and I could look at Jesus and say, "That's what God looks like." The apostle John described the stepping out, "The Word became flesh and lived among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14, NIV). Jesus made His dwelling among us. He camped out in our midst. He moved into our neighborhood. When Jesus visited this planet there was a stench from the sin that pervaded the place. The garbage of humanity was strewn everywhere. He stepped out of the heavenly portrait to take His place in a dirty, faded, and mangled earthly photograph.
He came seeking to save the lost and to give His life as a ransom for many. Think about old stingy Zacchaeus, whom his community despised and hated as a tax collector and as a representative of the Roman oppression in their town. Jesus, immediately upon entering that community, stepped out of popular etiquette and looked up and saw Zacchaeus hiding in the tree and said, "Zacchaeus, I'm coming to your house for dinner today."
Reflect also upon the woman at the well in Samaria. She went to the well at the hottest point of the day, because she couldn't bear the scorn of the other women in town who looked down upon her in shame because of her immoral lifestyle. Jesus stepped out of the cultural traditions and asked her for a drink of water and then turned and offered her the living water.
I think about Jesus and the children. The disciples thought of the children as pests, and they were shooed away. Jesus stepped out of accepted "religious leader" behavior and said, "No, no, let the little children come to me." He did not just reach down and pat them on the head. He reached out and scooped them up and hugged them.
Throughout all of Jesus' time on this earth, and even today, He steps out to meet people at their point of need. He is just that way. He continues to demonstrate, time and again, that He is a man of grace. When Jesus stepped out of Heaven-zone, He became a man. The Gospel of John says that Jesus was also full of truth. The word "truth" literally means "that which is open to view, that which is unconcealed, that which is transparent." I especially appreciate Moffat's translation of this verse. He translates this word as "reality," saying that Jesus was full of grace and reality. Jesus was real. In fact, He was the most real person who had ever lived before that time, who was living then, and who has ever lived since. When Jesus stepped out He was real.
Christmas is not some surrealistic image of what life might be like; it is the reality of the one called the Christ who stepped out to show us what life really is and should be.
In Christ,
Brown
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Christmas banquet
Home Made cooking, "best in the County". donation $7.00
Serving at 12 noon
At Wesley United Methodist Church.
1000 Day Hollow Road, Endicott, NY 13760
Come... Share... Rejoice
For Information: 607-748-6329
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Praise and Worship Service
First United Methodist Church, Endicott
Sponsored by Union Center UMC
6 PM Gathering - Coffee - Fellowship
6:30 PM Worship
Music: Jane Hettinger
Speaker: Dave Hettinger
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