Christmas 2021

"Tears are falling, hearts are breaking

How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that You don't mind our manger

How I wish we could have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven's silence
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sins and make us holy
Perfect Son of God

Welcome to our world"

Welcome to Our World, words and music by Chris Rice

This has become one of my favorite Christmas season songs! As I was listening to it today one line stood out to me:

"How I wish that we had known."

Questions come to mind about how God made it known:

• There were Prophecies given, most notably, "a virgin shall be with child."
• but how would that be verified?
• as far as we know, only one virgin ever, in the history of mankind, in the billions of people  conceived and born, claimed no human father had been used in the making of her child (and the only guy who had a vested interest believed her!)
• There was The Star pointing to the uniqueness of this particular child's birth. But what if God had waited until neon signs and billboards had been invented? ("SAVIOR'S BIRTHPLACE FIVE MILES AHEAD...LOOK FOR THE GIANT RED ARROW")
• There were Angels making the birth announcement. (The ultimate gender reveal party!) Yeah, right! We're not even getting all the government's secret files on UFO's yet, how could we possibly be asked to trust a report about extraterrestrials that hasn't been dissected by experts and CNN? 
• There were sheep herders claiming they'd heard from Angels. C'mon man. These were not professional journalists with college degrees and access to 24 hour global news networks. Were they even vetted for their credibility? Do we know anything about their childhood traumas? Did anyone look into their social media accounts to see what their political and religious affiliations were? Where are their psychological evaluation reports?
• There were wise men bearing gifts. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Seriously? What if Bill Gates (global information access), Elon Musk (universal technology master), Jeff Bezos (global distribution chain), Mark Zuckerberg (global communities), Goldman Sachs (global financial experts), Rupert Murdoch (global media magnate), George Soros (subverter of governments) and such had shown up? Serious media coverage and doors of opportunity would have been flung open to this fledgling savior. Fame and fortune in an instant of time...oh, wait, that was offered to him eventually, wasn't it?

"At just the right time..." so observed the Apostle Paul, who'd been blinded by the glory of the resurrected Jesus. Perhaps we should add "at the right place, to the right people, in the right circumstances." God did His part in just the right way, because it's not hard to imagine how the response to "this day in the city of David, a savior has been born" would have played out in the modern world. It would have made King Herod's attempt to snuff out the competition pale in comparison!

One other line that caught my eye: 

"Bring your peace into our violence."

No matter how sophisticated and advanced technology becomes, no one but a Savior can change the human heart. The same heart that resides in every human being ever to walk this planet. The heart that has proven over millennia of time its capacity for malice, violence and destruction. All of us.

Only Jesus Christ can give us a new heart 

and with it a new life!

"This means that

anyone who belongs to Christ

has become a new person.

The old life is gone;

a new life has begun!"

2 Corinthians 5:17

That's why we celebrate December 25th, the day that marks the greatest gift ever given: 

a Savior who is Christ the Lord!

If you've never received this gift by opening your heart to Him and choosing to follow Him, why not let 2021 be the merriest of Christmases you'll ever know?!