THE WORD SPOKE LOUD AND CLEAR

“The Word became a human being and lived here with us. We saw His true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. From Him the complete gifts of undeserved grace and truth have come down to us.”  (John 1:14 CEV)

"As nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to 'lisp' when speaking to us," said John Calvin.  In the Old Testament especially, God "lisped."  Speaking in a language that could be understood, God gradually edged His people toward a different way.  He took the side of the oppressed and promised a Suffering Servant who would redeem not as the perpetrator but as the victim of violence.  For a time He allowed behavior that He disapproved of, "because your hearts were hard."  Meanwhile, albeit sometimes in zigzag fashion, the long vectors of history pointed steadily toward His Son, Jesus, the final revelation of God in human form.  In Jesus, God no longer lisped; the Word spoke loud and clear. 

-- Philip Yancey in “The Bible Jesus Read”

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MUSINGS ON A MIRACLE – Part 4:

Christmas is A CHILD

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”  (Isaiah 11:6)

No king upon a majestic throne!  No supernatural phenomenon!  No mighty fanfare piercing the airwaves!  The gurgling and quiet cooing of an innocent baby!  What a peculiar way for God to meet us at the intersection of the human and the divine.  How unsophisticated of God!  Christmas is a child and a time for children and a time for the child-like qualities which lie there deep beneath the surface of our adult competence and coolness. Today we continue the sad saga of the slaughter of innocents by our deliberate intent or willful neglect.  Unless we become as little children, even as this one unique child, can we really hope to inherit the Kingdom of God?  Of such is this Kingdom, so we are told.  How childish can we be to not see the love of God and the sweet mysteries of life in the face and form, the beautiful trust, of a baby?  “And a little child…..the Prince of Peace….shall lead them.”


-- Don G. Smith, Lorne Park Baptist Church, Mississauga, Ontario, December 7, 1985

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THE STILLNESS OF THE UNIVERSE

Two thousand years ago God spoke through a manger, and we still experience the mystery! The Christmas story is filled with it. Mystery is not in what we see and do not understand. Mystery is in what we know deeply and cannot see.

I recall a crisp, silent night during Christmastide when my children were teenagers, and we cross-country skied in the moonlight. The sky switched on its tiny lights above us, and the moonglow lit the way. Spruce limbs drooped with icy fingers and cast crooked shadows all around us. The swoosh-swoosh of our skis startled the silence. A stream trickled beneath the ice, heeding the call of the sea. The soil hid beneath the snow, and seeds slept deep below, trusting the green of spring. Leafless aspen gazed at us from the other side of the pond, singing softly with the spruce in antiphonal chorus "Il Est Ne'": "He is born, the holy Child." We stopped, glancing back at the twin scars trailing behind us marking clearly where we'd been. But where we would go lay open before us, unmarred. We grew quiet, sensing anew that the stillness of the universe is a dance of barefoot grace with the Creator, a silence alive with cosmic joy and mystery.

Emmanuel! God is with us!

-- Marilyn Brown Oden in Manger and Mystery: An Advent Adventure (Nashville, Tenn.: Upper Room Books, 1999)

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