Merry Christmas!

When I think about Christmas I think about three things…faith, hope and love. Imagine that? I don’t think of them in that order though. See, I first think about hope. I think about what great hope the followers of Jesus in the 1st century could have in the fact that God had chosen to come down as the Son of Man to be our salvation. He came down to bring us out! But, where do we get our hope? “Faith is the substance of all things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Our hope comes from our faith that Jesus is the Son of God, sent by God to be crucified, dead and buried, and to rise again. But that doesn’t happen until Easter. Nowadays its only a few months between Christmas and Easter. In the 1st century there were 33 years between Christmas and Easter. 33 years of faith. 33 years of believing in things that they hadn’t seen happen yet. So, faith in what? Faith in knowing that God has sent His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Why, would God do something like that? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Because He loves us THAT much.

So, when I think about Christmas, why do I think about faith, hope, and love? Because that’s all we really get until Easter! We get faith that Jesus is God’s only Son, hope in God's promise to his nation, and the love of God's sacrifice.