I love the story
of the Nativity of our Lord. I get excited reading it.. I get excited
proclaiming it. The event of our Savior's birth is so mundane yet so divine..
it is human yet it is so heavenly. It is so earthy yet it is so
celestial. That story changes everything. It changes the way
we think about God, as well as the way we think about ourselves, our neighbors,
and even the whole world. When the Child is born, all heaven breaks loose.
Angels appear to shepherds watching over their flocks, and the sky is filled
with light and singing, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to
all people of goodwill". Then, to add to the general chaos, the shepherds
leave their sheep on the hillside and run to Bethlehem to see the child.
Of all who know the story, who doesn’t love that story and what it means and what it transforms?
God comes to us, not in dramatic displays of power but in the ordinary stuff of human life—like the birth of a child, like parents trying to make a home for their baby with whatever they can find, like an inn full of guests enjoying hospitality and one another’s good company late into the night; like shepherds— economically marginal, somehow sensing that something important is happening, dropping whatever it was they were doing and running to Bethlehem. God comes into our lives when love is given. The Christmas story is a story about God, not merely an event that happened 2000 years ago. It is more than a story — it is a sign of how God continues to come into history. It reveals how God intersects with human life, with your life and mine.
William Placher, in a fine new book on what the church believes about Jesus Christ and what difference it makes, says that the birth of Jesus Christ, the incarnation, changes all the rules, transforms the humanity of the least of persons. The members of the Stroke Club, the homeless woman pushing her grocery cart ahead of her, the child in Cabrini-Green spending this night alone in front of a television set; The U.S. Army corporal on watch in a remote corner of Afghanistan, the patients in the ICU, the people of Palestine and Israel, the beleaguered people of Bethlehem—what happened in Bethlehem transforms the humanity of every one of us.
Revel Howe wrote, “We do not find love by looking for it. We find it by giving it"?’ I would answer, ‘Go find someone to love and you will find God.’” In other words, we need to love in order to find love.
Those who know and love Jesus know and love the story of Bethlehem and the holy birth and the angels and shepherds, but the purpose of the story is not simply to make us feel good but to change you and me, to transform us into the kind of women and men God wants us to be. The purpose of the story is quite personal, actually. It is to tell each one of us that we are loved with an infinite love. God’s purpose is to transform us into agents of that love and through us, and through all who this night "travel to Bethlehem" to transform our families, our neighborhoods, our cities, indeed the whole world.
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!
Of all who know the story, who doesn’t love that story and what it means and what it transforms?
God comes to us, not in dramatic displays of power but in the ordinary stuff of human life—like the birth of a child, like parents trying to make a home for their baby with whatever they can find, like an inn full of guests enjoying hospitality and one another’s good company late into the night; like shepherds— economically marginal, somehow sensing that something important is happening, dropping whatever it was they were doing and running to Bethlehem. God comes into our lives when love is given. The Christmas story is a story about God, not merely an event that happened 2000 years ago. It is more than a story — it is a sign of how God continues to come into history. It reveals how God intersects with human life, with your life and mine.
William Placher, in a fine new book on what the church believes about Jesus Christ and what difference it makes, says that the birth of Jesus Christ, the incarnation, changes all the rules, transforms the humanity of the least of persons. The members of the Stroke Club, the homeless woman pushing her grocery cart ahead of her, the child in Cabrini-Green spending this night alone in front of a television set; The U.S. Army corporal on watch in a remote corner of Afghanistan, the patients in the ICU, the people of Palestine and Israel, the beleaguered people of Bethlehem—what happened in Bethlehem transforms the humanity of every one of us.
Revel Howe wrote, “We do not find love by looking for it. We find it by giving it"?’ I would answer, ‘Go find someone to love and you will find God.’” In other words, we need to love in order to find love.
Those who know and love Jesus know and love the story of Bethlehem and the holy birth and the angels and shepherds, but the purpose of the story is not simply to make us feel good but to change you and me, to transform us into the kind of women and men God wants us to be. The purpose of the story is quite personal, actually. It is to tell each one of us that we are loved with an infinite love. God’s purpose is to transform us into agents of that love and through us, and through all who this night "travel to Bethlehem" to transform our families, our neighborhoods, our cities, indeed the whole world.
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!
In Christ,
Brown
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