We had a lovely Christmas Eve service tonight. We sang a few songs, read the Christmas story from the Jesus Storybook Bible and had time to visit with our extended church family. One of the readings we shared was a passage from Ann Voskamp. I wanted to share it with you here.
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The
message of Christmas is this world’s a mess and we can never save ourselves
from ourselves and we need a Messiah.
For
unto us a Child is born.
The
Light never comes how you expect it.
It comes as the unlikely and unexpected—straight into Bethlehem unlikely
and the feed trough hopeless, and Christmas whispers there is always hope. It doesn’t matter how dark the dark is:
a light can still dawn. It doesn’t
matter if the world whispers, “There’s not a hint that help will come from
elsewhere,” telling us that nothing will ever improve, get better, change. God favors the darkest places so you
can see His light the brightest.
And
once the light of Christ shatters your dark, shadows forever flee your
shadowlands. There’s no going back
and living in the dark; you live in the impenetrable, safe Light of light, and
Christmas never ends for you. A
Christian never stops living Christmas.
True, you cannot light Christmas—because it’s Christmas that lights you.
It’s
Christmas that dawns on you, and you only really believe in Christmas when you
really live it. When you light a
dark world and the unexpected places with a brave flame of joy; when you warm
the cold, hopeless places with the daring joy that God is with us, God is for
us, God is in us; when you are a wick to light hope in the dark—then you
believe in Christmas. When you
really believe in Christmas, you believe there is really hope for
everyone. When you get Christmas,
people get hope from you—they don’t lose it.
Unless
you keep passing on the miracle of hope, you live like Christmas is a myth.
So
light the Advent candles. Light
them! Light them!
And
you can see it, with every lit candle, sparks of the dawning.
Hope
catching on everything.
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