Pastor said this morning that Christmas is a microscope. It enlarges the pain of our past.
The memories of past Christmases of loss and grief. A Christmas near the death of a loved one. A Christmas spent alone. The lens of the Christmas microscope zooms in to moments of loss or disappointment we have experienced.
Sometimes that microscope will illumine during moments of current happiness. Have you ever had a good Christmas when the pain of past holidays would not let you experience the joy of the season? When you could t shake the sadness of earlier times?
This happens. In our human frailty, we forget.
We focus our squinty eyes into the eyepieces of the microscope. We choose to regard the disappointments of the past as controlling the present.
We forget the provision the God of the universe made for us that night.
We have been given an alternative to the narrow focus of what we can see though our human eyes. We examine with pinpoint accuracy the sadness and loss of our lives, bringing that present pain into crystal clear focus.
We have a choice.
God invites us to lift our squinty eyes to the sky to the star He provided that led to our redemption. He invites us to enter into the fullness of time to partake of the gift He gave to us through His Son.
Is Christmas a sad time for you? Does the concept of comfort and joy seem unattainable?
The singular thread of history, from Creation to the present day, asks you to follow. The prophecies of old point to only one conclusion – God Himself deigned to come to earth one day long ago to provide for us a way out of the mess of our sin and into the assurance of His eternal peace after life, and His comfort and joy while we tarry here below.
Will you accept the gift? If you don’t know Jesus, He longs to meet you. He asks you to lift your eyes to Him to know the true comfort and joy of life. There is no better day than today.
You don’t need a powerful microscope to know God. You just need a simple faith to really hear the true story of joy to the world that that we have so graciously been given.