In sifting through ideas for today's snowy Saturday Spotlight, I couldn't seem to decide on one that befit the theme of the season. With Christmas so close, a post on The Great Gatsby or Florence Nightingale seemed out of place . . . so I decided to put the spotlight where it should be this time of year. On Jesus.
But how to give justice to the Light of the World, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counsellor in 3000 characters or less?
I'll speak from the heart. This year especially, the Christmas story means hope more than anything to me. The walk with Christ is not painless and not without challenges, but always beneath the struggle there is an anchoring hope that ties me to what is real in a world designed to look that way, that holds me to what is steadfast in an ever-changing society. It's the belief in something marvellous that occurred two thousand years ago, something that shook the very foundations of the earth and shakes hearts today, to their very roots, with the promise of a coming return.
Jesus was born in human flesh—an infant, no different than those we see around us every day. A human child in a world of human children, entering our midst in the humblest setting imaginable. And though from afar it may seem unfathomable that such an event, one birth among billions in human history, could hold such weight for mankind, come closer. See the Son of God gift-wrapped in swaddling clothes for us. See the light that came into the world to lead us to our Father in heaven.
Jesus brought hope down from heaven with him—hope that there is a God above who loves us enough to give Himself for us, hope that we have a purpose in this world, hope that through Jesus we may be free from our sins and, by accepting this, that we may spend our eternity with him. Christmas is the Messiah's origin story—a celebration of the night hope was born. Without it, the beginning, there would be no end. No triumphant climax in which Christ conquered darkness and rescued us from slavery in sin.
Christmas is hope—then, now, and always—looking back to the birth that marked our Savior's coming to point us to the day he'll come again.
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