However we plan on spending Christmas, normally it involves family. Hmm. That can be a mixed blessing. Well 2,000 years ago, there was a little family affair that was a bit like that.

It’s a funny time Christmas, it can be such different things to different people. If you get to the northern hemisphere it’s cold, I mean really cold. I have a really good friend Dave and his wife Judy who live in a place called Lincoln Nebraska and over Christmas, they’re telling me how much snow they’ve been shovelling. They have a short break the family gets together and is a bit of a rush and they have presents and get back to work again in early January. You come down to the southern hemisphere and it’s all wrapped up with a Summer holiday thing you know getting to the end of the year, Christmas is happening, most of us are going to have two or three weeks off, we’ve ditched the Turkey for Christmas and because it’s so hot we have a seafood picnic by the beach. To tell you the truth I have this unfulfilled ambition: I would love to spend Christmas in the snow just one year to enjoy my hot turkey. If you go to the east where countries are Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist well Christmas just isn’t part of the culture although, having said that western materialism… well the machine is breaking through and they’re starting to have the whole Santa Claus Christmas shopping thing. In the West of course it’s part of our culture. It’s all about shopping. Billions, literally billions, are spent on credit cards in that Christmas rush.

When did Christmas actually happen? Was it actually the 25th of December? Is that Jesus birthday? Well we’re pretty sure that that’s not the case because if the shepherds were out watching their flocks by night, probably, they weren’t doing that in the dead of winter. Normally, in the dead of winter the shepherds took their flocks and had them housed in places in the villages. That probably wasn’t the 25th of December. It was probably some other time of the year. Christmas actually began in Rome it was Christ mass and the timing was around the Winter Solstice. It was around a Pagan festival. Pretty scary when you look at the history of how we came to celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December. And yet wherever we are, whoever we are, however we celebrate Christmas, we do it over and over and over again pretty much the same way, pretty much without thinking because it’s… well… it’s just the way that we’ve always done Christmas. But one of the things that tends to happen at Christmas is that: however we celebrate it, families, extended families, tend to get together for Christmas. It’s probably a bit of a hangover from the past – you know 50 or even 100 years ago – when families gathered together over this Christmas feast.

Maybe for you, that’s a positive experience. Maybe it’s fun and the kids and the cousins get together and there’s presents and there’s time to relax and have a drink and talk and a nice meal. Maybe that Christmas thing is a really positive thing for you but maybe it’s a source of tension. Who’s going to buy presents for which of the kids? There are people in extended families who don’t get on. Often there is much too much drinking and people get drunk at Christmas time. Did you know that Christmas time is one of the highest times for incidents of domestic violence? It can be a tense time and maybe Christmas can be a lonely time, a time of regret, a time when some people are just on their own. And it’s a really sad time to spend on your own. Good or bad, better or worse: Christmas seems to bring this whole family thing into a really sharp focus.

Let’s step back just for a minute. Let’s step back 2000 years to the very first Christmas. That wasn’t exactly a perfect family affair either I have to tell you. Matthew tells us about it right in the first chapter of the book that he’s written – Matthew’s gospel – it’s right at the start of the New Testament. He begins that book with a genealogy. You know so and so begat so and so begat so and so begat so and so. What a riveting way to start the first book of the New Testament. I mean, why did God do that? It is so boring to you and me here and now. Well, it turns out that in Hebrew culture your family and where you came from… those things were really important. People wanted to understand what your lineage was and names meant something. People were named with names that actually mean something. My name Bernard means as strong as a bear. Now, in our culture, we don’t bother much with understanding what names mean but in that culture, those things were really important.

And, it was a patriarchal culture so generally in genealogy’s it was a men-only affair. Only the men were listed. Generally, in genealogies, women were listed by exception if there was a reason a good reason to list them. Well, in the genealogy of Jesus – which kind of traces him right back through David right back to Abraham – there are actually four women listed and they’re each listed because they are a blip, they’re are a wrinkle, they’re a wart on Jesus genealogy.

The first one is Tamar. Tamar pretended to be a prostitute and she slept with her father in law. Rahab is the next woman that’s listed. She was a prostitute. That’s how she made her money: sleeping with men and being paid for it. Ruth is the next woman who’s listed. Ruth was a Moabite. Moabites were a race that the Jews really despised. They were the enemy and they just weren’t well-liked. Then, the next woman that’s listed is not even listed by name. She’s called the wife of Uriah. She’s the one that David saw having a bath on the top of the house once even though she was married. David slept with her, had her husband murdered and ultimately she was Solomon’s mother. The last woman who’s listed is Mary. A teenage girl engaged to Joe – Joseph – who falls pregnant. And Joe decides because she fell pregnant out of wedlock and he clearly wasn’t the dad, he was going to send her away and she says “but it’s not my fault! God did it!” “Yeah right, Mary”. And then an Angel appears to Joseph and says “actually it was God.”

As Jesus was growing up – you know how cruel kids can be in the schoolyard? You know how nasty children can be? – Here’s this Jesus who as far as the society around him was concerned was born out of wedlock. He’s got a dubious genealogy, I mean he’s got some people in his heritage who are just not people that you would want in your genealogy.

There were two terms used for Jesus as he was walking around on the earth: one was the ‘Son of God’ and one was the ‘Son of Man’. ‘The Son of God’ says Jesus is different, he is special. It was God’s spirit that conceived that little boy in Mary’s womb. And yes it’s right for us to look at him and say “that’s God. That’s what God is like. Let’s worship him.” But the label that Jesus most preferred to use about himself was ‘The Son of Man’. In other words, when Jesus talked about ‘The Son of Man’ he was talking about himself. He was saying, “sure I’m the Son of God but I’m also the Son of Man. Also just like you I’m a carpenter. I was born in this rumour and scandal and whispers. My heritage has adulterers and prostitutes in it. I’m less than a nobody I’m a nobody with a bad reputation.

That’s a different perspective on Christmas isn’t it? It’s not what the pantomimes normally give us. But it’s real and it’s here and it’s now and it’s Jesus who identifies with you and me. He’s for real. He’s been through the school of Hard Knocks. He’s God’s son but he’s also the lowest of the low. I love that about Jesus. I love that he was born out of that heritage into that space, in that time. A bit of a different slant on Christmas isn’t it?

One of the things, one of my pet dislikes, is when we take the children’s Christmas pantomime which is well and good in itself and we take that and say ‘it’s that away in a Manger view.’ Where we make the whole Christmas thing so romantic. Christmas was a nitty-gritty, painful, difficult time. The first time round, it was for Joseph, it was for Mary. Have a great Christmas.

Most of us probably have a cupboard full of useless Christmas presents that we’ve been given over the years.  Or perhaps you, like me, have “re-gifted” them, even thrown them out. So, why do we keep doing that?

Yup … Yup! Christmas is almost upon us, and I guess most of us, well, we’re pretty tired of all the Christmas shopping ads on television. The hype, the tinsel, the baubles, the bread makers, the rice cookers. In fact, the list of useless things you can burn your cash on, over the name of Christmas. Well … it’s endless. Some people are so hard to buy for. What do you buy? I’ll think of something as I wander through the shop in that well planned, strategic heart felt process of giving, that we call the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy. Isn’t it crazy? Especially when there’s a child dying of hunger every three seconds. Stand back and pinch yourself, it’s nuts right? So why do we do it?

What’s the most useless present you have ever been given in the name of Christmas? A tie, the sort of tie that you will never be seen dead in? Some monogrammed hankies, some perfume or some aftershave that you just choke on? Or maybe it’s that bread maker you think, “I haven’t got time to make bread.” Or the rice cooker you think, “Hang on, what’s wrong with the pot that I usually cook the rice in?”

They tell me, my family does think that I’m difficult to buy for. Well, that’s probably true, because I do have really definite taste. So I buy my own ties and my own aftershave and I’m not really in to receiving presents. On the other hand, I think I’m easy to buy for. I’ll have the next series of MASH on DVD, thanks! A bottle of good New Zealand Pinnonua? The simple act of giving, well, it’s great you know. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m not knocking it, but there’s a difference between genuine giving and racing around the shops at the last minute buying useless stuff because we have to buy someone a Christmas present.

If giving is going to be genuine, if it’s going to be, you know, real and meaningful, well, it has to be tailored and thought out and heartfelt. If I’m going to buy you a present, I need to know who you are. I need to know what you like and what you don’t like. I need to think about it and wander and say, “Hmm, I think I really like that one. I’d buy that one.” That’s sort of giving is wonderful, isn’t it? It’s wonderful if someone knows you well enough and cares for you well enough to go and buy something that you’d really like, that you’d really use, that you’d really enjoy.

But to me, it’s so crass when people just race around and fill their shopping cart with stuff at the last minute and give you this thing and you open it up and you go that’s not me. I’m not going to use that and then you kind of smile and say, “thank you”. And it s like, it’s awful, isn’t it?

We have been all been in that space. You open that thing and you get that tie and you think, “I wouldn’t be seen dead in that tie.” This is shabby, crass, commercial, ritualistic Christmas. Why do we do it? What is it that causes us to have that sort of a giving at Christmas time?

Well the whole present thing at Christmas begins right back 2000 years ago with the magi, the wise men. They’re actually astrologers who had come from the East, they’d followed the star and they came to worship Jesus and they brought him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. All of those things were really valuable commodities in the context of that society. But really the whole big giving thing at Christmas didn’t begin until about the late 1800s two things came to get a historically cause this to happen. The first was the Santa Claus stories somehow court people’s imagination. The second is that in the economy of western societies, retailing started to become a phenomenon. You know shops were opening; stores were starting to understand that advertising was important. So those two things historically came together to give us the sort of Christmas presents that whole phenomenon, the whole multibillion dollar industry that we have as Christmas today.

But the first Christmas present, the first Christmas present wasn’t gold, frankincense and myrrh. It was a baby. It was Jesus, God’s own son. Later this week, we’re going to have a look at the whole event, that Christmas night from God’s perspective, from a different angle completely, but today I just want to look at the whole question of gifts and presents. If the first present of Christmas was Jesus himself, was it a worthwhile present? In a nut shell it goes like this; God exists forever. Out of His love and grace, He creates a world and puts you and me in it and it’s a great world and it’s a wonderful world, but it’s also a world that has problems, pains, hurts and difficulties.

Any psychologists will tell you that one of the deepest problems in the psyche of a lot of people is guilt, a nagging sense of something of inadequacy and here’s God’s angle on Christmas: Guilt is a product of our free will. It’s a product of us being able to choose, to love and to worship God or to reject Him. And many people choose to reject Him. It’s a direct consequence of our free will, and we live in a great world but you and I have made some real mistakes as wonderful as that world is. But you and I have made some real mistakes, and those things bring hurt and pain into our lives and there’s a need for justice, too, of somehow ultimately pain for those mistakes. If we look at Adolph Hitler, we look at him and we go, “I hope there’s some justice there somewhere in the next life.” Don’t we? Wouldn’t it terrible to think that Adolph Hitler got off – scott free? That comes with our sense of justice that God gives us, and then Jesus said, “Hang on, there’s another way. I’m here. I’ve come so that you’d know my love. I’ve come as a carpenter, a person just like you.”

The Son of God grew up to become a man wandered around for three and half years, teaching, doing amazing things to show us who God is. He died on a cross to pay for the price, demand of justice and He rose again. To give us hope and victory, and future in eternal life, that’s a nut shell. That’s God’s view on what was happening at Christmas.

Now, let’s just take those two things, God’s view of Christmas, God’s version and this crass, commercial Christmas that’s all about presents that we throw in the bin, a lot of them. You weigh those up. One of in the left hand, one on the right hand. You look at this Jesus, Joshua. His name actually means God came to save, God’s salvation. Christ means God’s anointed or chosen one. So the name Jesus Christ means the way in which God has chosen to save the world. God’s chosen and anointed Savior.

You weigh him up on one side, the Jesus of humility, of amazing truth and relevance and forgiveness and hope and future and that Jesus, that Christmas. And on the other side, you weigh up the crass, commercial Christmas that we have come to celebrate. You look at them and say, “Which one rings true? Which one resonates with me? Which one deep inside meets my deepest needs? Do I need a Savior?” I can’t answer that for you. It’s your choice. But let me say this. The scary thing, the sad thing this crass, commercial Christmas, this ritual that has little or no meaning or satisfaction that we celebrate over and over and over and over again. Wouldn’t it be sad if all the time that Christmas, God was whispering to each one of us, “I love you. Look at my son Jesus. I sent Him for you. I love you.”

That’s what Christmas is all about. I can’t answer the question for you whether in your heart you feel a need for a saviour. All I can do is this. This Christmas can I encourage you to think about that very thing? Can I encourage you to look at the real Christmas, that baby born out in an animal shelter amongst the goats, the cows and the sheep. Which one is real? Which one is authentic? Which one is all you think? Which one touches you and me with deep love? Have a great Christmas!

Tinsel, Trees, Turkey’s and treats.  Is that what Christmas comes down to?  It’s a bit hollow, don’t you think? And here we are, rush, rush, rush – trying to get it all together for the big day.

You can’t understand another person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes – so the saying goes.  But what about a hundred miles … from Nazareth, to Bethlehem

So how many sleeps until Christmas? What are your plans? At home with the family? Out with your extended family? Maybe catching up with some friends at a restaurant There are lots of different ways to spend Christmas, but mostly it involves being with other people, family or friends. So I don’t know, I thought today, we might spend a few minutes of Christmas with a young couple, Joe and Mary. This young couple, she’s pregnant, and they’re having a tough time. I wonder what it would be like to walk in their shoes?

They live in a place called Nazareth. Now Nazareth is part of a country that’s occupied by the Romans. The emperor is Augustus. And one of the things that the Romans were very good at, was the big strength of the Roman Empire was their administration, and Augustus decides that he’s going to have a census. You know, count the number of people that live in the various counties. Now these days, of course, the census forms are delivered to our homes, every five years where I live, and I think the next one’s due next year. But back then, to be counted, they had to travel back to their ancestral home. And for Joe and Mary, that meant a trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Well how far is that? About 150 kilometers, 90 miles. Well that’s not too bad, an hour and hour-and-a-half down the freeway in the family car; we’ll put a good CD on. Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. They had to do this by foot. Now fortunately they had a donkey for Mary to ride on. But it was really hilly country that they had to travel through. There were some tracks and there was some stuff cross country, and maybe the odd road for them to travel on. Who knows what the weather was like. At best, you could hike maybe 30 kilometers, 20 miles, in a day over hill and dale. But hang on. Mary’s heavily pregnant. Now she’s in the last few weeks before she’s about to deliver this baby, so the baby’s dropped, and she’s riding on this donkey.

I think at best they could have covered half that distance. So in reality, this trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem was about a nine- or a ten-day journey. Maybe there was the inn to sleep at. Maybe they couldn’t afford it; maybe they spent some nights sleeping out, sleeping it rough. How do you think Mary was feeling almost due to deliver this baby? It’s funny now how this never makes into our trite little Christmas pantomime view of what Christmas is all about. And all the time on this journey, nine or ten days, kicking away inside her tummy is this little fellow. They were going to call him Josh. That’s short for Joshua, which is a Hebrew word that mean’s God’s Salvation or Saviour.

So the English version of the Greek version of the Hebrew word is Jesus. Josh’s mom and dad were just teenagers, really. They were engaged, not yet married, and here she is, her tummy sticking out for all the world to see that she’s pregnant. There must have been deep shame associated with that because back then it wasn’t like today. I mean today, in most societies, ok, a couple live together, they have a baby. You or I might not think it’s right, but there’s not the huge shame associated with it; that was the case in their day. And today for many, it’s a life-style decision. Several months before an angel had appeared to Mary and said, “You are going to fall pregnant. God is going to come and you are going to fall pregnant with a child, and that child will be the Messiah. That child will be the one that God chooses to save the whole world, and you’ll call Him Jesus.” And she was overwhelmed. I mean this was amazing, and it happened exactly at the angel said. And without sleeping with a man, she falls pregnant.

It’s an amazing miracle. But she’s engaged to Joe. I mean how do I tell Joe about this? And when Joe finds out, well, can you imaging the pain? Can you imaging the sense of betrayal? And Mary – she says, “Well it wasn’t me; God did it.” Fabulous – there’s a good excuse. It’s a bit like not doing your homework and saying the little Martians came in their flying saucer and stole my homework.

I mean it’s fanciful; it’s ridiculous really. And Joseph was so hurt and he was so embarrassed, and he was so ashamed that he was going to send her away and have nothing to do with her. But then he had a dream, and an angel appeared to him and said, “Listen, God’s doing something here. And this little boy, you’re going to call him Joshua because he’s going to be the one that God chooses to save the world through.”

And so Joe takes Mary at her word, and here they are on this trip, by foot and on a donkey, there’s nowhere to put the 6-CD stacker. She’s feeling a bit uncomfortable; she’s wondering if it’s all true, and “I’m feeling so uncomfortable on this donkey, and here we are heading towards Bethlehem. What’s going on? How’s it going to be?” And Joe – well sure, he had the angel appear to him in a dream. He’s over it, but not really. I mean this is his fiancé that God chose to cause her to fall pregnant with Jesus. This is the woman he loves. He wants to marry her. They were living tough. There would still have been a dull ache in Joseph’s heart. Are you getting the picture?

This nine- or ten-day journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem – it wasn’t like riding in an air-conditioned car down the freeway, listening to a cd. It was tough; it was hard. These were difficult times for Joseph and Mary in an occupied land, going through some tough issues. And they get to their hotel in Bethlehem, and they go to the check-in counter. They say, “Sorry, you’re name again is Mary, Joe. Look, we don’t seem to have a booking for you, and we’re all booked out. And it turns out that Bethlehem is a small place. There aren’t a lot of hotels to choose from. Everything is booked there because people are coming back for the big Roman census. But you could sleep out back in the stable with the animals. Hmmm. Here’s that whole “away in the manger” thing. Sheep, cows, goats; the stench of animal dung and rancid urine on the dirt floor.

Cold, uncomfortable; come on ladies – now there’s a place to give birth to a baby, isn’t it? And that night, that night, that’s exactly what happened. And Jesus’ very first breath, He inhaled that stench of the animals. And with that little cry of a baby, the Saviour is born. Christmas, that first Christmas, was a tough time for Joseph and Mary.

There was joy, sure, but there was sorrow. There was wondering if it’s really true, is He going to be the one? Is this the Messiah? For me, if God is God, and Jesus is who He says He is, the Son of God, the Savior. On one hand, this is so unexpected. There’s no palace, there are no servants. There’s not even a room. Jesus isn’t born in a nice comfortable middle class house like I live in – he’s born out the back with the animals, in a shed.

But then when you look at who Jesus was, who He became when He’d grow up, and you see God in Him. You see this Jesus who love people no matter what, who was so passionate about people around Him and loving them and touching them and healing them and setting them free from the sort of religious oppression that was being pushed around at the time. When you look at that Jesus you think, ‘He’s the only person in history that could ever have chosen the time and the place of His birth, and he chose a stable with some animals.’ And you think, “That is so Jesus, that is so God. That is so authentic.” What do you think?

I love the fact that Jesus didn’t come in a palace. I love the fact that Jesus came in this way to identify with you and me to say, “I’m real; I’m here for you. This is a gritty reality. I love you.” What do you think about Christmas? Have a great one.

On that starry, starry night 2,000 years ago out with the cows and sheep, a Saviour was born. Have you ever wondered – what was going on in God’s heart as He watched on?

Way back in the olden days as my kid’s called them, fathers didn’t get to go in to be a part of the birth of their children. More’s the pity, I think they were really robbed of something very special, well of course, mostly that’s changed these days. Way back 2000 years ago out in the back shed behind the hotel with the farm animals, a little fellow called by the name of Joshua was born. We call Him Jesus. We know Mary was there, and we know that Joe – Joseph – her fiancé was there. The animals were there. But there was someone else – God. Dad, as Jesus used to call Him. He was there too, watching intently as His Son, Son of God, Mary’s son, the Son of Man, was born. I wonder how He was feeling.

When you were a kid on Christmas morning, and you wake up, and you think, “Ahh, it’s Christmas!” And you race out into the lounge room, and the trees near, and presents are there, and you race into mom and dad’s bedroom and scream at the top of your lungs, “He’s been! He’s been!” The excitement, the quivering anticipation, opening the presents. I remember once there was this car. It was a green metal pressed car with like with a little chimney or funnel with a ball on top. And you wound it up and the car went forward and it blew the little ball up in the air at the same time. Kids have an amazing innocent way of having fun, of enjoying things like Christmas. Kids enjoy little things so completely, so intensely, and then we grow up.

Christmas can feel sometimes like a ritual. I talked about it the other day here on A Different Perspective. You know, it becomes a chore – you rush, it’s a race to the finishing line. It’s no wonder that Jesus said, “I tell you the truth. Unless you change and become like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.” This Christmas juggernaut is heading our way; it’s hurdling towards us, and I wonder if we’re in the middle of all of that, through those words of Jesus, Gods isn’t actually saying to us, “Be like a little kid.” Enjoy Christmas. Enjoy the very first Christmas present that was ever given, my Son Jesus.

I sometimes wonder what was it like for Dad that night. The religious leaders of the day got really upset with Jesus when He was grown up, and He referred to God as Dad. He actually used the word “Abba”. And the best translation we have for the word Abba is “dad”. It’s a very familiar, very loving term. And he always referred to God as “Dad” when He was praying. It was Dad.

So I wonder, how was Dad feeling on that night? I mean here’s how it goes. God is three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And these three persons in one God have lived together for all eternity in a perfect and loving relationship. But all along God knew that this act of love, of creating the world, of the universe, you and me, giving us free choice, all along God knew that our free choice would result in rejecting Him.

Was God surprised when we rejected Him? Not at all. He knew. It’s the price of giving us free will. Was Jesus’ dying on the cross some hastily put together Plan B? I think not. This act of love, of creating us in God’s image and giving us a free choice, the moment God did that, God knew that He would have to deal with our failure, of our rejection of Him, or what He calls Sin.

He always knew that. He always knew that He would need to send His Son Jesus into this world. That was always Plan A, and it’s a supreme act of love. So here we are on that starry, starry night. Mary – mom, God the Father – Dad and little Joshua. Jesus deciding to step out of Heaven to lay all His glory and His power aside, and to be poured into this little body that began like it was yours and mine.

This little boy that grew up into a man. And there are basically three things, three things that Jesus did for us. The first one, I like to call ‘show and tell’. One of the most important things that Jesus does as a man is He shows us through His human face what God is like. He said, “If you want to know what God’s like, look at me because I am the exact image. The way I act and respond to things is exactly the way that God the Father reacts to and responds to things.”

That’s really important. If we ever wonder, ‘what does God look like?’ all we have to do is go and look at Jesus and we see what God looks like. The second thing was He paid the price. We want justice in this world; we all want justice. You and I know that we’ve made mistakes. You and I know that we’ve failed.

And so Jesus came to pay the price so that you and I, when we believe in Him, can have this free gift of a relationship with God – eternal life. Jesus paid the price. But He also rose again. He gave us a hope for future, an eternal future. He gave us a victory over sin and death, an eternal life.

He came to show us what God is like. He came to pay the price for our sin – mine and yours. And He came to give us a hope of eternal life, a living hope. So here we are. We look back on that night 2000 years ago – the shepherds, the angels, Jesus born amongst these animals. If you or I were God the Father, what would have been going through our heart?

What would have been going through our mind? Like any dad a new baby, joy flooding through you. This little baby, not in a castle fit for a king, not in a comfortable home; in this in this cold uncomfortable animal shelter that we romantically refer as the stable, this unhygienic, smelly rancid place – the manger, and animals filling trough. As the Son of God came into this harsh world, to His first breath, what was going on in the father’s heart?

With tears in His eyes, with His great joy because He knew this plan the he’s always had for you and me. It was being born here in the manger. This beloved son of His would reveal His love to us. Was His heart torn with grief at the same time knowing what Jesus would have to suffer? Was His heart aching at the price that His child would pay at the very hands of the people who He loved?

And as He watched His Son being born in that stable and crying out for the first time, was his heart a flood for love for you and for me? Knowing that here at the turning point of history, here at the most significant thing that will ever happen, the birth of Jesus, God was hatching His plan for you and me.

Then we look at look at Christmas and we say, “Am I going to enjoy this Christmas?” And sometimes we look at the crass, commercial approach that’s taken over what Christmas is. You see how far we’ve strayed? You see how easy it is for us to miss the point? And amongst all the cacophony of sound and advertising and wrapping paper and food and stuff, to miss that small, quiet voice of Christmas which is God speaking to you and me saying, “Here, here is Christmas.”

“Here is my Son, my Son Jesus who came to tell you about me, who came to die for you on the cross. To rise again to show you that you have a certain hope of an eternal future.” How easy is it for us to miss that quiet small voice?

My prayer for you this Christmas, for you, for your family, for all of those whom you love, is that you will hear that quiet small voice this Christmas, and I wish you and your family a blessed, peaceful, and graceful Christmas, in Jesus Christ.