I am of, at least, average intelligence and am intimidated by electrical timing devices. Maybe I don’t have enough bandwidth because I would rather meditate on more complex challenges like world peace. I think of that today because a Santa fellow recently asked me what I want for Christmas and world peace popped into my mind and out of my mouth (re: Miss Congeniality – Sandra Bullock – Dec 14, 2000). I did not remember that film was a Christmas release. I have Christmas lights on some bushes in front of my porch that used to frame the porch awning. Since I had the exterior of my home painted early summer, all of the little nails to hang lights are missing. I literally held up the pile of lights and released over the bushes and they landed like I had planned it that way! A little Christmas miracle compared to the REAL miracle of Christmas which is HOPE. We have had rivers of water and dark skies this December. A good neighbor (now in Florida) set the light timer for dusk + eight hours. That has been perfect for years but now the dark skies have tricked the device to shine at 10:00 AM or noon or some other dark and arbitrary time so that, by 6:00 PM the lights shut off and I don’t know how to fix it. See how one thing I do not control – the weather – is controlling the light which to me represents Jesus Who is the Light of the World? There are other dark influences that we do not control. My friends husband just died, a famous Hollywood person and his wife where probably murdered by their troubled son, a father and son randomly shot into a crowd of Jewish believers at a Hanukkah celebration. The world is messy today, and add your own disturbing experience. The reason we survive the worst is because, “…God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God”, John 3:16-18. I love this total gospel except for the word ‘might’. There is a condition on us receiving the goodness and mercy of God and it is the possibility of eternal life IF we believe in Jesus. If we don’t then separation from the God, Who we chose not to honor, is the outcome. The LIGHT of the World is Jesus. The HOPE of the World is Jesus. The incarnation is hope being born. Hope being received is salvation because: 1) Jesus paid the price for sins, 2) Our eyes have been opened to hope, 3) we are saved from the condemnation we deserve, and 4) Jesus proved that we can trust Him (outline from Pastor Steve Walker, Canyon Hills Community Church, Bothell, WA.) Without this Christmas Day and the hope it brings, we are fighting for our lives in a dark place, making everything about us, and heading for destruction. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. Who can we blame but ourselves?
