Today’s scripture: Romans 5:1-5 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Keith Phillips):
I love Christmas — the whole season!
But the celebration has to be pretty traditional for me to truly enjoy it. The tree goes up the weekend after Thanksgiving; it must be a live tree. It stays up until Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas on January 6. I love the lights; I love my decorations; I love the Christmas carols; I love giving and receiving cards and gifts. Most of all, I love the Christmas story, preferably from the King James Version.
One of the wonderful opportunities I had when I was a hospice chaplain is to be able to read parts of the Christmas story to a half dozen or so patients and families each working day for the whole month of December. I was constantly amazed that so many don’t get to hear it otherwise. Then we would have prayer, and invariably I mention the traditional Christmas blessings of love, hope, joy, and peace.
I never told my patients that the Christmas story is really very marginal to the Gospel. Two different versions are reported in Matthew and Luke, and that’s it. The oldest parts of the New Testament, Paul’s letters, barely mention Christ’s birth at all. Unquestionably, the New Testament focuses on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. But those traditional Christmas blessings of love, hope, joy, and peace everywhere abound, even here in Romans.
In this passage, Paul refers to “our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand” (verse 2a). This amazing grace which is ours through Jesus is, of course, that unmerited, unconditional love of God revealed when God’s only begotten Son came into our world. Love Came Down at Christmas.
In this passage, Paul refers to “our hope of sharing the glory of God” (verse 2b). We are hopeless until we realize that, created in the image of God, we are intended to become more and more like Jesus, which is, at the same time, to become most truly human. O little town of Bethlehem, . . . The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
In this passage, Paul encourages us to “rejoice in the hope of the glory of God” (verse 2b; KJV). Because the Lord has come in human form, we have joy realizing that we are empowered to transcend the mundane, the superficiality, the meaninglessness of our culture. We can become what we are meant to be. Joy to the World!
In this passage, Paul refers to our “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 1). God and we sinners have been reconciled through Christ. I heard the bells on Christmas day/ Their old familiar carols play,/ And wild and sweet the words repeat,/ Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
Thought for today: Just as there could have been no Easter without Good Friday (the emphasis of the New Testament), there could have been neither crucifixion nor resurrection without Christmas.
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.