God is with us. God is with us!
Although Jesus was conceived to a virgin, God still gave Joseph to Mary. God provided her the protection of marriage so that while others may not have understood what miracle really happened it kept her safe and taken care of. God is our Great Provider too!
We've read the words and touched the limbs of our Jesse Tree this Advent in preparation for His coming. God is here! God is with us! It is happening just as he said it would. The prophecies are full of details like this. They're not vague predictions or horoscopes that you could twist with little effort to make your own truth. They're detailed down to places and names and history so that we know that yes! God is with us!
Ann's direction here seems to emphasize the uniqueness and effectiveness of Christianity, the intimacy of our relationship to Christ and the enormity of what His coming really means. It's pretty impressive she could fit that into one chapter!
It is Christmas that first makes the absolute claims of Christ. Like the diagnosis of a doctor, every other religion says that good-enough living will save us. But like a soul specialist, Christianity examines our hearts and says that actually we're all terminal unless we take (have) Christ - that it's Jesus who saves us. (233)
And like I've said before - you can't have Christmas without also having the Cross - every Christmas tree is shadowed by the Cross Tree: it's at the Tree that God does heart transplants - He takes your heart and does surgery. (233)
In the care of our own souls, Christianity isn't so much about exclusiveness but effectiveness. What will actually save us?
And it's the joy of Christmas that offers the gift of exclusiveness - because of its effectiveness to save the terminal soul. (234)
Well that blows away the old excuse "Christianity is only a crutch". It's the cure! The only one!
Beginning with the paragraph on 234 that starts God can't stay away. This is the love story that has been coming for you since the beginning - I go back in my mind to all the Scripture we've read so far. All the prophecies, the kept promises, the misfits and mess-ups and the unfolding of His-story. A love story for us. So God throws open the door of this world - and enters as a baby. As the most vulnerable imaginable. Because He wants unimaginable intimacy with you. (235)
It cost Him everything to be with you. Who will spend a fraction of time just to be with Him? Who wants the gift of His presence? I thought about that and it made me think of birthdays. Who celebrates a birthday without going to the celebratory birthday party? It does't make sense! Our church has Christmas Day services every year to celebrate Jesus' birthday and I'm sorry to say, most years the attendance has been pitiable. Most churches around here don't even offer it just assuming people will be home opening up presents, hosting Christmas brunch and tending to the turkey in the oven. All in the name of Christmas tradition, one that doesn't include sitting in a church pew hearing the Good News proclaimed of what there is to even celebrate. I'm really not condemning here - I just wish more for the Body of Christ. If we want the gift of His presence, we have that through being in the Word. We have everything Needful because Jesus fulfilled our every Need. Do I need to stay in my pj's until noon? Do I need to host dinner and stay home with a turkey (I mean one you're not related to;)? My prayer for the Body of Christ is that we want to be with the Giver of the Gift this Christmas whether in our church if we're able to or if not, in the Word in our homes recognizing the enormity of the message God is with us and knowing we are so unbelievably loved. That's the gift God wants to give us.
God is with us!
3 comments:
Thanks for your post Rachel. I love how you find and highlight the good in Ann's writings and then bring it back to Scripture! Sometimes I think Ann is trying too hard to make the Christmas story profound, coming up with far-reaching analogies that can be misleading, when the Christmas story of Scripture is already as profound as you can get. Saying that, I really appreciate your use of Scripture throughout your posts as they have helped to center me this past week and reflect on God becoming man to live and die for us.
That's interesting that you would say that - trying too hard to make the story profound. I especially think that this particular week - and you saying it only made me see it more clearly. I think that may be why I've struggled the most with it lately.
In preparation, I would read the text from Scripture, check out my Concordia Self-study notes and write my thoughts down. Then I would read what she wrote. Sometimes she'd go in a direction I thought was sort of a stretch! Or she wouldn't even touch upon something I noted.
Having said that, I find her writing quite poetic and beautiful. She has quite a way with words!
I pray that the posts have given it a balance - between letting the Word speak, appreciating her poetry and bringing a focus back to the Means of Grace.
I think they definitely have:) And I'm going to have to go back and catch up on some of the early chapters, as I think there is a lot I've missed!
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