God Speaking

“Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you, he is Christ the Lord”

(Luke 2: 11)

One of my favourite carols always sums up the true meaning of Christmas for me and as we sang it last Sunday (of course at our virtual church) the same feeling of awe that sweeps over me encompassed me again and I am reminded of the enormity of this priceless gift. 

O, come let us adore him

O, come let us adore him

O, come let us adore him

Christ the Lord

Unfortunately, Christmas celebrations now look vastly different from how the simple shepherds reacted that very first morning. These simple peasants were visited by a choir of angels, imagine listening to angels singing, and so amazing that these people were the first to hear that a King had been born. Their response is also amazing they left no time in rushing to Bethlehem to find this royal baby not stopping to have some huge feast to celebrate among themselves. 

“When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Lets go to Bethlehem and see the thing that has happened that the Lord has told us about.” (Luke 2: 15)

The Bible does not say this, but I think they would have been incredibly surprised about finding this precious baby, the King, being in a stable and not some grand and fitting location for this amazing royal Saviour, the Messiah. 

Their other reaction is also a wonderful lesson for us when we think deeply about how we react to this incredible gift from our Heavenly Father. They immediately ran to tell everyone they knew about this wonderous happening and everyone they told were equally amazed. 

“When they have seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard were amazed at what the shepherds had told them.” (Luke 2: 17 – 18)

I looked up what the dictionary defined as the meaning of “adore” and this is what I found. 

To regard with utmost reverence and affection

To be in awe on Christmas morning is a wonderful response for us as well as we contemplate this as Paul says “an indescribable gift” 

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.” (2 Corinthians 9: 15)

I read an unusual Christmas card this year that sums what I have been trying to write, all it said was a simple sentence 

Celebrate the miracle of Christmas

This pandemic has made normal Christmas celebrations to be quite different and in a strange way it has scaled down a lot of what we must focus on/ less harried shopping/ huge meals to prepare/ office parties to endure/ etc. This year will give us all time to marvel at the miracle of this special baby born as a king, the Messiah, we can adore him in the true sense of what that word means.