Veiled in Flesh the Godhead See!

What a great Sunday yesterday! An incredible group of our young people presented a Christmas program to a full sanctuary. They recited poems that recounted the true meaning of Christmas, and sang a lively Christmas song for us. It’s so important for our young people to be taught the Scriptures and for them to understand the importance of what God has done and is doing in our world. Once I again, I encourage families to make sure that it’s a priority for our young people to be in Sunday School and Worship, not only at this time of year, but all year long. Young people learn from watching what we value the most.

During the worship service, we also looked at the good, old carol by Charles Wesley, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” Wesley included such an important statement about what it means that Christ took on flesh and lived among us. This time of year, we remember that God, the Son, took on flesh so that we could not only know who God is in a way that we could understand, but so that we could have a relationship with God. God wanted you so much that Jesus was born so that we could be his. Think about that, and the value that means that you have to him.

Colossians 2:9 says this:

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (NIV 2011)

So, Christ was fully God and he came so that we could have fullness as well—we could fully be the people that God intended us to be from creation. As Wesley wrote:

Hail! the heaven-born Prince of peace!

Hail! the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all he brings,

Risen with healing in his wings. Mild he lays his glory by,

Born that man no more may die: Born to raise the son of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

In Jesus, we can be given “second birth,” and renewed to be the people we were meant to be.

Next week, we’ll be considering the meaning of the carol “Joy to the World.” We’ll be particularly focused on the verse:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found.

When we look at the world around us, we recognize that things are not as they should be. Christ came in order to overturn the brokenness we see in the world. Though it has not yet been completed, his healing of the world has begun!

Next week is also our choir’s Christmas cantata, “Good News from Home!” I’ll encourage you again to invite your family, friends, and neighbors to come and celebrate this special time of year with us.

May God’s love and peace by with you and yours during this Advent season.

Brian