ChristmasReading2022A - Flipbook - Page 2
INTRODUCTION: November 27 - Sunday
Getting Ready for
Christmas
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given…
Isaiah 9:6
The announcement of a baby’s birth always holds a degree of hope.
The pain of childbirth gives way to the joy of a new life presented to
the world. A whole new and undiscovered future stretches forward
with an cipa on of good things to come. In the op mis cally
democra c West, we believe our children can become anything they
want. The baby we hold in our hands at the star ng line of their life we
imagine as presidents, CEOs, doctors, professional athletes, teachers or
whatever. We know deep-down there will be skinned knees and
busted lips, measles and broken hearts, but we an cipate and look
forward to good things, posi ve things. We pray. We hope.
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Israel, for a very, very long me, an cipated and distressingly looked
toward the future, to a Messiah, an “anointed one,” a son of David
whose promised coming would change everything. God would come
again to Israel as He had in the past. The prophets—recognized
spokesmen of the me—had said as much. That “change” was thought
by most in Israel to be a change of fortunes for Israel, or be er put, the
return to the past fortunes of Israel. No one at the me really
understood what that meant beyond freedom from foreign and deeply
pagan powers, perhaps a robust and ourishing economy, peace all
around and a renewed sense of ourishing—that all would be well
once again. In other words, this future child would make a profound
and far-reaching change to the “world as we know it.” But no one could
have seen just how far-reaching the change would be because it would
be more than a return to past na onalis c fortunes; It would be a
revolu on felt throughout crea on; it would be good beyond the scale
and scope of even the most ambi ous hope.