Christian Reflection and Prayer

Scripture:

Advent cover 2013The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us (see John 1:14)

Reflection:

As this Thanksgiving weekend draws to a close you
might want to start thinking about Christmas,
especially if you haven't given it a thought before!
This year Thanksgiving is as late as it gets. That
leaves us only three and a half weeks to buy those
presents, put up the decorations, send out the
invitations, mail out the greeting cards, bake all the
cookies, and do all the other Christmas preparations
you have to this year. Where should you start?

I would suggest we take a moment to remember
what all the fuss is about. Before we jump into all the
holiday preparations, let's stop, turn around, and take
a look behind us-way back to the very first Christmas.
Three books of the Bible do that for us: Matthew,
Luke and John. Each describes Jesus' birth from a
slightly different perspective.

Matthew shows us Christmas from the viewpoint of
Joseph the carpenter-Mary's husband and Jesus'
foster father. He discovers his betrothed wife is
pregnant, considers divorcing her, then takes her as
his wife after receiving an angelic message in his
dreams. Luke shows us Christmas from Mary's point
of view. She is visited by the angel Gabriel who
announces God has chosen her to be the mother of
His Son. Then she travels with her husband to
Bethlehem where she gives birth to her firstborn Son.

This Christmas season we will study John's account
of the first Christmas. John will not look at Christmas
through the eyes of Joseph or Mary. Instead, he will
have us look directly into the eyes of the Baby Jesus,
so we can clearly see the reason for this season-and
all the preparations we make.

(Lutheran Hour Ministries)