The Light of Christmas Pt. 1 {The Rest of the Story}

Have you ever started reading a book then peaked at the ending, only to have to put the book down and move on, 'cause now-you-know-how-it-ends-so-what's-the-point-in-reading-the-whole-thing-anyway?  I've done that before, and missed great stories because all I got was the end.  And somehow the end just isn't the same without all that leads up to it - the rest of the story.

I'd like to share a story with you over the next several days.  A Christmas story.  The reason I write this story is because I feel like Christmas has become like skipping to the end of a good book, just to get the highlights.  By doing so we overlook what leads up to the climax and miss the whole meaning of the story. 

Christmas isn't really the end, more like the middle, but all the focus seems to be on this one small part - and these days much distorted.  So I'd like to start my story not at the end, nor the middle, but where it all began, and hopefully the climax of the story, Christmas, will, when it's all done, have more signficance to you.  Let's go back, not to a general once upon a time, but specifically.....

In the beginning

There was

Nothing

But

God.  His Son. His Holy Spirit.  As One.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  Then God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.”  Gen. 1:1-4

He spoke.  By His powerful word.  And it was.

"Ex nihilo".  Something from nothing.  No human can do that.  No animal.  No computer.  No robot.  Nothing can bring forth something from nothing.

No one

But

God.  His Son.  His Holy Spirit.  As One.

In the beginning God spoke light into the darkness.

 

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made.”  John 1:1-2

Nothing was made without Him.  Stars that fill an endless sky.  He made them from nothing and He calls them out each night by name.

Flowers delicately painted, grass, seeds, trees of unending variety, created to grow for the cattle, for the service of man that he may bring forth food from the earth.  The sea full of innumerable teeming things.  Man, perfect, made in the image of God, the pinnacle of this creation. 

In wisdom He made it all.  God.  His Son.  His Holy Spirit.  As One.

His invisible attributes clearly seen in His creation, the heavens declaring His glory. 

Can you see Him?  Look around if you will, for all things were created by Him.

Including you.  Including me.

He knit each one of us in our mother’s womb.

Fearfully and wonderfully we are made, you and me.

His eyes saw our substance, yours and mine, being yet unformed, and in His book all of our days were written before even one of them came to be.  His thoughts of you and me, precious, how great is the sum of them.

We are not one in billions, insignificant.  We each are one, specially formed with a purpose.  In the image of God, our invisible creator.

Yet even though all things were made through Him, even though in Him was life and the life was the light of men, even though the light shone in the darkness, we who live in the darkness, cannot, do not comprehend it, Him, the light.  

The darkness is as light for us, and we like it there - a deceived heart does that.

I remember when my heart was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face it; when the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep waters of a deceived, cold, hard heart pumping blood through my veins, but not really alive.

In the beginning.....

To be continued......