Joyful Christmas

Thursday, December 4, 2014                                                  Luke 20:27-40

Suzie Lane

  

I distinctly remember the look of stunned disbelief on our daughter’s face. She was 4, and, at that tender age had fully grasped (a 4-year-old’s grasp) the birth of Jesus and its magnitude in her world. That year, Jesus’ birth was so much more than camels and donkeys, the inn and shepherds. In her own young way, she knew, really knew, that God had brought Jesus to live in her world simply because God loved her so very much. It was a beautiful to behold. And, then shock and disbelief came storming mere weeks after the Christmas season as we barreled into Lent. With ashes smeared on our foreheads, suddenly, Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified on a cross. Her exact tearful words, “He was JUST born!” Her heart was broken. Now, it was time to gently lead her from rejoicing in the birth to grasping the resurrection – in 4-year-old language.

Not believing in a resurrection, the Sadducees, likely, needed a 4-year-old’s answer when they asked Jesus, “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” They had laid out the puzzle for him: “…a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died.”

Jesus’ answer seemed to satisfy them at that moment, “Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.” That is who we are, children of God, children of the resurrection.

We cannot rejoice in God’s son coming to earth without rejoicing in God’s ultimate gift to us, Jesus’ resurrection. God loves us so much that, indeed, God sent his son to earth to live among us, to know joy and pain and happiness and grief, but that love didn’t end there. In our “Brief Statement of Faith” we say, “God raised this Jesus from the dead, vindicating his sinless life, breaking the power of sin and evil, delivering us from death to life eternal.” What an indescribable Christmas gift to the children of God!

Prayer:  Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small,

                  Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. Amen.

Daily Challenge: Look for evidence of the resurrection in the birth of Jesus.