Brown's Daily Word 12-17-13

   Praise the Lord.  Jesus is the Christ of Christmas.  He is the one in whom we live, move, and have our being.  His birth has set the world on the move.  His birth causes traffic jams along Fifth Avenue of the New York City.  His birth has caused the carolers go out singing Christmas carols.  His birth has caused the composition of the some of the best music in the world.  His birth has caused some of the best musicians orchestras to perform "Handel's Messiah" all over the world during this season.  He is worthy if of all our celebration, all our singing, all our worship, our giving, our receiving.  

 

    We brought home our Christmas tree yesterday.  It is beautiful - over nine feet tall. It is almost perfect. We get our tree every year from one of the local farmers who is committed Christian.  The Lord has blessed him with very large farm.  It is a multipurpose farm where he also produces maple syrup.  He was telling me that they had one of the best years of sapping in 2013, so they had a surplus of maple syrup.  They sold over two barrels to Vermont.  Vermont buys maple syrup from New Work, bottles it, and sells it as "Vermont Syrup".  (This is my rendition on the Vermont Maple syrup).  This is part of the Christmas miracle.  it's all good.  The owner of Christmas tree farm, who is 94 years old, told me that he also got a good size dear during  hunting season. 

 

    We will meet this evening at 5 PM at the Wesley United Methodist Church, 1000 Day Hollow Road, Endicott.  We will meet at  5 PM for some exotic Christmas foods and go on caroling.  The friendly snow is all around.  Come, share, and rejoice.

 

    Christmas time is a time of great joy.  It is also for some a time of loneliness and sadness.  I know of several saints of Jesus who love Him and serve Him who are battling with some severe health problems.  When we go through some chronic and debilitating life situation we often ask, "Lord, where are you in this?".  My daughters remind me of the great faithfulness of the Lord.  Even in times of long silence our Lord is at work. 

 

    The Bible says that God was at work, even in years of silence.  When we look at the Salvation History we discover that there was a period of 400 years of silence between the prophecies of Malachi and the birth of our Lord Jesus.  The people might not see it at the time, but looking back from the ministry of our Lord, the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 4:4-5, “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son.”  God was at work, preparing, making ready until just the right moment, when the time had fully come.

    At the time of Jesus’ birth, a great part of the world spoke one language, Greek, thanks to the conquests of Alexander the Great.  At the time of Jesus’ birth, Rome had built new roads for travel and established commerce between continents.  At the time of Jesus' birth and ministry, and the mission of the early church, it was possible as never before in history to spread the gospel around the world.  “When the time had fully come,” wrote Paul, “at just the perfect moment, Christ was born.” God was not absent but working, not only for the birth of the promised messiah, but the birth of the promised prophet who would prepare his way and the birth of a church that would spread the gospel to the uttermost parts of the world.

    The people of Israel had no trouble believing that God had acted in history and could even accept that God would one day act in the future.  What was hard was to believe God was present, active, involved, and working in their world in the present.  It took faith to trust that God was there when God seemed to be completely silent.  We’re no different, are we?

 

           "When the arches fall

And the creditors call

And the best you can say

On your 401K

Is you might not lose it all . . .

God might not feel all that near."

 

At times we struggle with the question of where God is right now, in our time of need.    Hebrews 11:1 says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

 

There are times when the only way we can move ahead is through the eyes of faith.  When we  don’t hear Him, we know by faith that God is there. When we can’t see the results, we know by faith God is still at work.  That’s what this season of Advent is all about.  We know that the God who acted in the past and gives promise for the future is with us even now.

 

In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/ZuGSOkYWfDQ

"A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home."

House of Christmas:  G.K. Chesterton