I just arrived home a few minutes ago from spending Christmas with family in Orlando. Friede is with her family in Georgia and will be home to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary on December 28.
I can't remember the last time I drove through a couple of cities at the end of Christmas Day. Headed home to spend Christmas Night alone, I began to take note of how few businesses were open even early in the evening. The raucous noise of protest seems to worsen during this season. The intent seems more intense to do away with Christmas having anything to do with Jesus. Irony seized my mind. Though much of the world argues and most of it disregards, the one person, the babe in the manger, the Lord Jesus Christ, has single-handedly shut everything down on this day, at least in these United States.
Though It's easy to shoot full of holes the way we celebrate Christmas, and be troubled about the attempts to separate the days of song and spending from thoughts about this One Solitary Life; it seems inevitable He always comes through. He is more apparent and certain to those of us who take a moment to stop, look and listen. I do that now as the final hours of Christmas Day slip into history and the possibilities and potential of 2010 loom large on the horizon.
I have heard from folks all over the country, cards, Christmas newsletters, E-mails, phone calls, texting (yes, I am learning to text, painfully, slowly and resisting all the way) and am mighty grateful for friends all over the world.
But here I am, home alone and lost in wonder. I am astonished when I think about that night of nights when the clouds were punctured with the songs of angels, when the star appeared pointing to where He was born and the shepherds left their herds with questions. The night when peace on earth was sounded from heaven. By all considerations, it could have and should have all been forgotten. It was all so unbelievable, so sudden, so soon past. But the world has not for a moment forgotten that young woman, that borrowed stable when this baby was born, echoing a prophetic utterance spoken seven hundred years before, "For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given . . . " It seems well that we not forget the rest of that statement since the first part has been so dramatically fulfilled: "And the government shall be upon His shoulders and He shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His dominion shall never end and its increase will never end; the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this (Isaiah 9:6-9)
Wow! I am astonished. There is a connection between that night, that young mother, that dirty stable, those strange things heard in the night and the desperate state of our world. What the above claims Him to be is exactly what this worried, weary world needs. He fits the job description perfectly and Here He is with me right now, His Spirit, living in and around me, His presence watching this world, Immanuel, God with us.
Excuse me, I have about three hours to enjoy the wonder of this day and ponder the future in the light of all it means.
At home alone and in wonder but wild with expectation because . . . of that child, that Son, that night and the sense of that Presence here now!
Jack Taylor
Christmas Night, 2009
I can't remember the last time I drove through a couple of cities at the end of Christmas Day. Headed home to spend Christmas Night alone, I began to take note of how few businesses were open even early in the evening. The raucous noise of protest seems to worsen during this season. The intent seems more intense to do away with Christmas having anything to do with Jesus. Irony seized my mind. Though much of the world argues and most of it disregards, the one person, the babe in the manger, the Lord Jesus Christ, has single-handedly shut everything down on this day, at least in these United States.
Though It's easy to shoot full of holes the way we celebrate Christmas, and be troubled about the attempts to separate the days of song and spending from thoughts about this One Solitary Life; it seems inevitable He always comes through. He is more apparent and certain to those of us who take a moment to stop, look and listen. I do that now as the final hours of Christmas Day slip into history and the possibilities and potential of 2010 loom large on the horizon.
I have heard from folks all over the country, cards, Christmas newsletters, E-mails, phone calls, texting (yes, I am learning to text, painfully, slowly and resisting all the way) and am mighty grateful for friends all over the world.
But here I am, home alone and lost in wonder. I am astonished when I think about that night of nights when the clouds were punctured with the songs of angels, when the star appeared pointing to where He was born and the shepherds left their herds with questions. The night when peace on earth was sounded from heaven. By all considerations, it could have and should have all been forgotten. It was all so unbelievable, so sudden, so soon past. But the world has not for a moment forgotten that young woman, that borrowed stable when this baby was born, echoing a prophetic utterance spoken seven hundred years before, "For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given . . . " It seems well that we not forget the rest of that statement since the first part has been so dramatically fulfilled: "And the government shall be upon His shoulders and He shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His dominion shall never end and its increase will never end; the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this (Isaiah 9:6-9)
Wow! I am astonished. There is a connection between that night, that young mother, that dirty stable, those strange things heard in the night and the desperate state of our world. What the above claims Him to be is exactly what this worried, weary world needs. He fits the job description perfectly and Here He is with me right now, His Spirit, living in and around me, His presence watching this world, Immanuel, God with us.
Excuse me, I have about three hours to enjoy the wonder of this day and ponder the future in the light of all it means.
At home alone and in wonder but wild with expectation because . . . of that child, that Son, that night and the sense of that Presence here now!
Jack Taylor
Christmas Night, 2009
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