Merry Christmas to Everybody and I hope you all have a blessed time remembering the Birthday of Jesus.

I am in Grosse Pointe with JD. Tina and family.  It is Christmas Eve, the sun is shining and there is very little hope of a white Christmas here.  We are warm,well-fed and together so what more could we ask for?  Lots of chocolate, maybe?

I am proud that I was able to drive myself part way up here from Ohio.    I drove north of Toledo about 12 miles and met Tina, Macaulie, Aynslie and Blake.  They drove me the rest of the way.  I am very comfortable behind the wheel but still uncertain about having to get out of the car and navigate on my own.

I will stay here until Friday and then back home for time with Jackie’s family, also Jim and Kathy if weather permits.

Before I know it, it will be 2014.  I remember wondering what the new millennium would bring and that was FOURTEEN YEARS AGO!!!

The last four weeks I have thought about Advent and what it might mean.  I discovered there were four themes, one for each week.  The first was waiting – waiting for something to happen.  I think we are always waiting. Quite often we wait with trepidation like when we sit in the hospital waiting room, or wait to hear from our child who has been deployed to a danger zone far away, or when we wait for a late child to come home.  That kind of waiting is nerve-racking and frightening.  Most of the time we wait with anticipation of something good, like Christmas.  Waiting for the next thing.  Too bad we can’t enjoy the here and now more and not spend so much time anticipating the next event.  Anyway, the first week we are waiting for something good to happen. 

The second week was mystery and the big wonderment in Advent was what, where and why Christ came as He did.  The answer was that He loved us.  Why?  Don’t know yet.

The third theme was redemption and since we are all a little bit bad, we are not all good and therefore are in great need of redemption because God is Holy and without any sin at all.  To be with Him, we also have to be perfect and so we need redemption and to be cleaned up and made pure.

This last week of Advent is devoted to the incarnation.  God made in the form of a man. 

I think it is important to remember that Jesus was not a human being with the spirit of God in him.  He was GOD in a human form. Jesus was God incarnate.  He is still God.  God with us! He is here!

He came as a baby, the lowest way to be a human.  He was needy and helpless, not threatening in any way. God coming to earth to live with us was not scary.  He wanted us to come to Him with loving hearts, not hearts that were afraid.  He came to the lowly people first. He started at the bottom: shepherds, carpenters, the unimportant and the ordinary.  He didn’t come with a royal lineage (though He had one), riches, or even physical beauty.  He was ordinary in every way so that all people would know that He was like them. 

God was able to let folks know they are important to Him. No one is excluded or too lowly to be left out. He started in the servant class and never left it. 

If God had come to us in a magnificent form like a towering angel, glowing in eye-popping colors, and emitting thunderous sounds; would we have come to Him in love or fear?  God doesn’t want us to come to Him in fear and capitulation.  He wants us to love Him back as He loves us. He lives with us, He teaches us, He shows us how we ought to live and then He dies for us. 

The incarnation of God was perfect in every way, just as He is perfect.  His plan for incarnation was perfect, too.

Our Christmas is waiting, mysterious, redeeming and all by a perfect God Incarnate in Christ Jesus.

My investigation into Advent was good for my spiritual walk.  I love Christmas and all the family traditions and doings that that entails.  God wants us to have good clean fun and to laugh and love each other.  I think He also wants us to include Him and to remember how great a sacrifice He made for us.

Christmas is so full of the stories of His greatness.   It’s a wonderful time of the year; the most wonderful season of all

  I hope yours is wonderful.  God bless you, Everyone!