Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas Means......

In spite of the acrimony and lies of our ruling class, in spite of the meanness and depravity of the media, in spite of the disparity between the haves and have nots, today is still and calm. The air is solemn. There is a reverent quietness running through all creation. The glory of God's gift penetrates the heart of  all things and reign's majestically, independent of the world's ability to receive or recognize it. Love has come to free the lost, the disenchanted, the disenfranchised. Jesus saw the broken condition of mankind and willingly became the atonement, the sacrifice, the lamb, the gift. We have been liberated from our sin, from our selfishness, from our desperate hearts. Today is the celebration of the victory over evil. The merciful heart of God inserted love into the battle that raged between what remained of His goodness in us and the cancerous decay of men without hope, purpose, faith. Christmas is the joy of compassionate intervention. Christmas is help for the helpless. Christmas is giving to those who cannot give in return. Christmas means measuring ourselves with a different scale, seeing ourselves in a different light. Christmas means the time of striving,  of suffering, of sadness, is finite. There is Joy for the world because the Lord is come and the earth has received its King! Christmas means living abundantly in the expectation that hope can replace despair, that sadness can give way to laughter, that love can rule our lives. My prayer is that in the stillness of this day, you would consider what it means to be free from sin and death; that your heart would be broken over your sinfulness and simultaneously overjoyed that our God saw fit to call us back to Him with the miracle of His Son coming as a child, that you would vow that this knowledge will color your living from this day forward. Selah!