Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
Luke 2: 10-11 (ESV)
We were there. And we knew it. And felt it.
On the Christmas night just passed.
We were there to remember. To celebrate.
And to pray and give thanks for that very first Christmas night.
To pray and give thanks for the Christ-child born on that first Christmas night so long ago, for you and for me.
The One who James Allen Francis wrote a poem about one-hundred years ago entitled “A Solitary Life” and which reminded us that He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant girl and carpenter.
The One who grew up in another village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.
He never went to college or to seminary. Never wrote a book or owned a home. He never lived in a big city or traveled any farther than two hundred miles from His birthplace in Bethlehem. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He was thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away and denied him. He went through the mockery of a trial and was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
Dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, his only property on earth, and then He was laid in a borrowed tomb.
He had no trophies to put on a table, no resumes or awards to frame and put on the wall. All the important people of any society, throughout any time in history, probably wouldn’t have taken His call. He had no credentials.
Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today He is the One who is the central figure of the human race.
And we are well-aligned with truth to say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned—put together—have not affected the life of humanity on this earth as much as that One, solitary life.
Jesus Christ. Here for you and here for me.
In the struggles of the day, and uncertainties of tomorrow. With finances running short, relationships running out, and loneliness and emptiness the only things filling the moments of our lives.
Here for you and here for me.
And with Him, we pray our lives will show all He created them to be.
Christmas night. We were just there. We knew it and we felt it.
Think about this—where else would we want to be to live the life we were created to live, but next to Him?
Christmas night. Where we need to be.
Right there with that One Solitary Life—Jesus Christ.
Right there—in every today and tomorrow, and throughout eternity.
In His Name–Scott
PS. Feel the sense of being there with Him by listening to and viewing the scenes of this beautiful music video (with lyrics) of the “Christmas Canon” (Christmas Night).