Merry Christmas, Faith!!!
I am so very excited for our Christmas Eve service! Just think! Faith is joining with the Church worldwide this Christmas to share the best news the world has ever heard!
But why is it news like none other?
So many people think Jesus maybe a game-changer, a great wise teacher, helpful for life’s journey, but the good news is far richer! The “one and only Son” has come to do what only “the only begotten Son” could do. Wait! What?
Curious? I hope so! I so enjoyed preparing this message from John’s gospel. I hope you’re bringing your friends and family. Services are online and in-person at 2pm and 4pm with an online showing at 7pm as well.
And to whet your appetite and put you in the Christmas spirit I have the following:
“We don’t use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something o the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set – or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like man indeed. But, of course, it is not a ream man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive.
Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Son’s of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God.”
― C.S. Lewis
And if you want to get this melody in your head, it’s becoming part of our congregation’s repertoire for it so well tells the gospel story.