Getting close. Less than a week. You and I probably have more yet to do, but hopefully this year we have been deliberate in our reflections surrounding Christmas. Whenever I ponder Christmas, good memories always flood my mind. Most are based on activities with family or at Church where I was involved doing something, frequently in concert or with the help of others, for siblings, parents, grandparents, people in the community who needed assistance, older members of Church who no longer had the mobility to attend. Although many of these go back 50 or more years, it seems like yesterday. This surely echoes what Luke attributes to Jesus in Acts 20:35 with the words ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’. In Christmas settings like these, the joy of giving is indelibly inscribed in our hearts and memories. This is precisely what God demonstrated to the entire world 2,000 years when he sent Jesus Christ. The world has never been the same since we learned and came to understand this, the greatest gift ever conceived. Paraphrasing the lectionary scriptures from Zephaniah and Isaiah, they declare, the Holy One, the King of Israel, the Lord is in our midst. That is what God has done, then and now, this very year- come to be with us, right in our midst.
Zephaniah 3: 14-20 and Isaiah 12: 2-6
Zephaniah 3: 14-20 and Isaiah 12: 2-6
Mark McCallister
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