The Way, In a Manger

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. -Isaiah 9:6

We have two new additions to our family at GPC. Welcome to Knox Gallimore and Elizabeth Preuett. And congratulations to proud parents Kyle and Kerri Gallimore and Justin and Martha Preuett.

As in the Harry Chapin song, they "came into the world in the usual way."

Which brings us to the reason for the season. A baby, born in the usual way a couple of thousand years ago. But this baby had many strange and wonderful things prophesied of him and made many unusual claims about himself. 

In fact, to many "religious" people of the day, these claims were simply too outlandish, blasphemous even, to bear. So they killed him.

And we look back today upon that time and those people and think, "How foolish."

But there are still those, some of them "Christians," who would deny either the miraculous birth (by a woman who had never known a man) or that this child (being born of woman) was God in the flesh.

Or both.

There have always been (and will be) those for whom the Word of God is not enough, but must be measured by human reason. Sight, not faith, is their criteria.

It all goes back, I suppose, past the original sin to the original temptation, "Did God really say...?"

But for we who have been blessed with the gift of faith, we celebrate the birth of Him who announced Himself as "the way" to the Father.

And it really doesn't matter that December 25 might not be the exact day of His arrival into the world, or that the early Church may have pre-empted some pagan holiday or other.

The thing is, He was born. The Word truly became flesh and dwelt among us. Even His name was truth, "God With Us."

This is what we celebrate. And if we do so in the midst of the gloom and chill of winter, all the better. For now is the winter of our discontent made bright in the Son of Heaven.

Merry Christmas.