The One who Saves

Some people look at this Christmas with something akin to to bitterness, feeling deprived of family get-togethers, shopping with the herds in the mall, going out to sing Christmas carols at the doors of neighbors =-yeah, people still do that--just not this year), attending the SRO candlelight service at church, walking out after church into the darkness that somehow seems holy with the bright possibility of a babe come on such a night on his rescue mission of people like me.....maybe a few snowflakes are falling and ii stick my tongue out like a child to catch some flakes with it. Going to mom and dad's house for gift exchange on Christmas....the smell of pecan pie and apple pie, cookies and spiced candied nuts, topped with the smell of the enormous ham in the oven.. The tree loaded with gifts.

But now we mourn the loss of these things. Even heaven weeps with us as rain drums on the roof. Mom is gone, "6 feet of earth away "--as a song I've heard puts it. There is no question that things are changing. We can easily get discouraged as the changes to our pandemic-stricken life style seem permanent--at the very least by the connection to loved ones we've lost to COVID. The losses are now personal to many of us.

It seems ironic to worship in a stable alongside Mary, Joseph, the Babe, and the shepherds when our world has lost its hope. But isn't it now, my friends, when we most need our Lord....the promise of salvation? Did you know that "Jesus" in Greek or "Y'shua" in Hebrew mean "The One who saves "? Isn't that precisely what our aching planet is groaning for? We need salvation, we need miracles. And there is no one to Trump the losing hand with which we are dealt....except the One hope of a time when, in a cold stone tomb which is now empty and the pledge that He will return, glistens with promise. Bad times are ahead...I know this is something no one wants to hear. But it is only through the power of that tomb, that promises a Power greater than Death itself. The One who saves is coming back, this time to gather His Children from the clutches of the enemy....The One who comes "To seek and to save, that which was lost."

The earth is coming to its last gasp and we are told in Scripture that this world will be destroyed and most of its inhabitants along with it. But the One who saves keeps those who are His...The Earth itself will feel the power of resurrection as it is re-made where for 1000 years, King Y'shua will reign in a world of peace where the lion and the lamb both lay down together, enemies no more.