Hark!

The angels sang at his birth, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men!"

The Christmas programs are over for this year. Our Sweet Adelines did five different performances, our choir did two performances, and then this evening, the choir and handbell choir took part in two Christmas Eve services. Now it's late, and I'm sitting listening to wonderful Christmas music from the First Baptist Church in Atlanta, in particular, "Mary, Did You Know?" All the questions that are asked of Mary...did she know? The Word says that the pondered all those things and kept them in her heart. We sang a verse of "O Holy Night" tonight that I do not recall ever singing., or I never paid attention to the words..."He knows our need—to our weakness is no stranger."

For the last two years I've quoted a passage from Lauren Winner's book, Girl Meets God, in which she speaks of advent not being complete until Easter. I would like to share that again.She writes: "The calendar tells us that this all culminates on December 25, but really the whole season slouches toward Easter. Jesus became incarnate now, in the manger of Bethlehem, but if His incarnateness is meant to make Him more relatable to us, if we are meant to have better access to God because our God has a body like we have, if we relate to Him better because He knows what it is like to weep and throw up and be tempted and suffer, then the Incarnation that starts on Christmas isn't finished until Good Friday. And the miracles that start in the strange inexplicable Virgin Birth aren't finished until the Resurrection.....Even his birthplace takes us to the Last Supper: Jesus, the Bread of Life, is born in Bethlehem, bet lechem, "house of bread," and at the Last Supper, He will break bread for us, and then on the cross He will break His body. Nothing in Scripture, even the names of birthplace towns, is coincidence."

May the wonder of Christmas be yours not just today, but from now on until we see Him face to face.