Thursday, December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas? Is this right?
Merry Christmas? Yes, it's not your typical, warm "Christmas" image, because I think it wasn't so warm or nostalgic for Joseph and Mary. They went through a hard journey only to find no welcome, no hotel, no decent room, and then major surgery (birth!) on top of it.
And it was through that difficult time---one difficult thing after another---that the Savior was born. The situation just kept getting worse and worse. In circumstances that felt like "death", God carried them and brought them new *life* in His Son. Life that does not depend on circumstances, wealth, comfort, prosperity or health. His Son's Life is an eternal kind of life, not one based on the things we think we need here. Instead He gave Life that depends only on His promise and His faithfulness to fulfill every word He has spoken. When all earthly comforts pass away, His comfort will remain. His life survived death and the grave, and His life in us will do the same. We can go through anything because He has gone through everything before us.
His "fulfillment" in your life might come out a little differently than you'd expected, just like it was different than Joseph or Mary --or any other Israelite-- expected. It will bring you through "death" to your expectations, but the result will be resurrection into a new life that is better than what you had been hoping for.
Bless you in Jesus Christ, the Life!
*****
Comments can be left on this link to original art post, where the story about the picture is posted as well.
# posted by Ramone @ 5:17 PM 
