A Merry Christmas to the Groksters and our Readers - and solemn, too - Granite Grok

A Merry Christmas to the Groksters and our Readers – and solemn, too

MangerScene1

Indeed – the reason for the Season. Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of God’s Son – Jesus Christ. He who was foretold:

(Jeremiah 23:5-6) The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In His days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which He will be called: The LORD Our Righteous Savior’”

(Matthew 1:20-23).  “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’)”

Too often, Christmas is just yet another day for many – a repeat of Thanksgiving but with presents.  For those of us of the Christian faith, He truly is God incarnate and a celebration of a the wondrous event that would end with the event that could bridge Sinful Man to God:

John 1:1- 14: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

For those of us who have realized that our sin has caused us to be separated from God, who is most Holy, there is only one path to God:

John 14:6: Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Without His birth, without being the Word that was God, without being without sin, there could be no propitiation for our sins – the only means, from the time of Adam and Eve, to the Most Holy, God the Father.

The Manger scene. While the secular part of Christmas with Santa Claus in his flying sleigh and Christmas trees adorned with lights above and presents below is a large part of the holiday, it still is the Manger scene that is primary for me. He, the Most High, was born in the least way possible – in a stable, in a rough hewn manger that, in other times, was just a place from which the animals were fed – surrounded in that rough place by lowly animals.

Yes, we celebrate his Birth but in so much that it was necessary to be the sacrifice for our sins. While we celebrate now, we should be reflective for the more important event – His taking on our sins by his death on the Cross. And on the anniversary of THAT day, be thankful and joyous for his Rising, showing that Death had no hold on Him, and through Him, we who have accepted His Free Gift of Life by acknowledging our sins and accept Him as our personal Lord and Savior.

It is hard – belief always is hard to understand and then to internalize both head and heart. Harder still when one’s faith must be an act of faith – the belief in the Unknowable and Unseen. Yet, it allows us to acknowledge something that many do not share (nay, wish to erase) and that is that there is someone larger and more important than ourselves. That we are ALL accountable, in the end, to One that will judge everyone for one and only one decision.

And it all started with God not willing to allow anyone to be eternally separated from Himself because He is Holy and that we aren’t.

That little Baby was the means that bridges unholy to Holy.

Tonite, we rejoice.

Tomorrow, look forward to Easter, the celebration and commemorance of the real reason for this season.

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