Saturday, July 23, 2011

A Reminder

I was just looking back through old blog posts.  I like to do that from time to time to see pictures of my children and read what we were doing at various points.

And I stumbled upon these words from a Christmas post I did.  I'm glad I read them tonight. 

And now I will close with a quote from the book that I am reading, Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus. I think it sums up Christmas so well


For the son of God to empty himself and become poor meant a laying aside of glory; a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice, and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony--spiritual, even more than physical--that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely men, who "through his poverty, might become rich." This Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity--hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory--because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear. (70-71).
 
Tonight, especially tonight, it helps so much to remember that God himself emptied himself and became poor.  He became poor.  I find such comfort in that tonight.  He was a man of sorrows, well-acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)  He is not a distant God. 
 
Okay, that's all.

1 comment:

Jessica said...

love this LB. It is comforting to know that Christ is well acquainted with grief and knows better than anyone our feelings of sorrow and heartache. And, to know that He had to go it alone those final days and to know we will never have to go it alone. Praise Jesus. Thank you for posting this. It is encouraging to me.