Not Your Traditional Christmas Story

Happy December and Merry Christmas! Here in Chattanooga, it's not the most beautiful day to ring in December, but to me that doesn't matter, it's still "the most wonderful time of the year!" For starters, I was born on Christmas Eve.  Before you all go feeling sorry for me, I love being born at Christmas, which maybe that's why it's my favorite holiday/season.  For the most part I am not cheated out of presents, by having birthday and Christmas presents combined.  Especially when I was younger, the two were very much differentiated from, with birthday presents being wrapped in birthday paper, not Christmas. Funny, now it really doesn't matter at all, I just love the season, so go ahead and wrap in Christmas (maybe not ready to say combine them. Ha!)  You may also be wondering, so why didn't your mom and dad name you Holly or Mary to go along with the Christmas timing theme. No idea...what you don't think Anita Marie Grossmann McGinnis has a nice "Christmasy" ring to it?? One year, around age 9, I was asked to play Mary in our church Christmas choir special. I was so excited I just knew they saw the resemblance between me and Mary, and especially with me being born at Christmas, only later did I realize they were just trying to get me out of the choir so no one could hear me sing! I would have my own "solo" of Silent Night playing Mary, by not saying or singing a word! To this day, much to my husband's and some of the kids dismay, I LOVE Christmas! I love the decorations, the lights, the gift buying and giving, the baking, the parties, the family gatherings, stuffing stockings, Christmas music(I no longer care who I offend by singing,) holiday coffee, shopping, Christmas cards,  and the list could go on.  I guess you could say Christmas goes right along with my Sanguine/extrovert personality!  But more than the love of all things Christmas, I cherish the fact that I was born near the time of my Savior, my Messiah!

This past Sunday our Encounter pastor, Chad Poe, shared with us a story of when he went to a friend's house for Christmas Eve, and like many families they were to read the Christmas story. However, instead of going to Luke for the "traditional" Christmas story of baby Jesus being born in a manger, the family read from John 1:1-18. What an awesome (in every sense of the word) passage of scripture for us to ponder on this Christmas season. It begins with verses 1-2 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning." As if that weren't enough, it continues in verses 3-5 "Through Him all things were made; without him nothing was made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." Just marinate on that a while. Then verse 14 says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." When it says "He made his dwelling among us," that literally means, He "tabernacled" among us! We will come back to this point. Then comes the final crescendo in verses 16-18, "From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another (or grace upon grace.) For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No on has ever seen God, but the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made Him known." We can just pack it up and go on home now!

God sent His son, who has been with Him from the beginning, to come tabernacle among us! In the Old Testament in Exodus we know that God gave very specific instructions as to how the tabernacle was to be set up. Here God would come and fill the place with His presence and He would dwell/tabernacle among them. But then God went a step further and clothed His son in flesh, to come and dwell/tabernacle among us! And He shall be called Emmanuel, God with us! No more did we have to go to the tabernacle to be in God's presence...but we could now have the filling of God's presence in our own lives through His Son.

Moses so understood the importance of God's presence. In Exodus 33, God is giving Moses directions on where to go and what to do. Moses says, that's real neat and all, but I am not going anywhere (especially with these people, whom you called stiff-necked) without your presence for us all! I don't just want it for me, but it better be for all of us, or I am not taking them! Moses makes another point, in how would they be distinguished, if God's presence was not with them.

Oh...that's good...can we be distinguished from others because of God's presence with us? I think you can look at this two ways, both as an individual and also in the very lives of our churches. Does God's presence, through His Son,  in our lives distinguish us from others?I find it interesting that God carries the theme of tabernacle all the way through to the very end of Revelation. In Revelation 21:3, it says, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling(tabernacle)  of God is with men, and he will live with them.'  Verse 22- continues, "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp." Glory!!! This takes me right back to the passage in John 1:5..."the light shines in the darkness, along with so many other verses referring to Christ as the light of the world! And there are no words to describe God and His Son, the Lamb, being our temple in eternity. No need for a tabernacle...They are it...dwelling among us forever!

These words from the Word came with a new freshness to me this season. Perhaps, I have even found my "new" favorite Christmas story to be read on Christmas Eve. I pray these scriptures will bring a freshness to you this Christmas season as well. Take time to meditate on these words, maybe it's for this month of December, and see what all God will teach you. There are so many more "gifts" in these verses to us that I haven't even touched on. I challenge you and myself, to let God speak to us through these words over this Christmas season.

P.S. To hear the sermon that sparked this, check out.....ridgedalebaptist.org - it should be posted soon.