As we come to the last Sunday of Advent, we reflect on the gift of love God gave us through his incarnated Son, Jesus Christ. We praise and honor Him because of His immeasurable sacrifice for us, beginning with the humble circumstances of His birth, the itinerant life He led during His earthly ministry, and the inconceivable suffering He endured, from imprisonment to torture and crucifixion. Not only did He sacrifice his body, but he bore the Father's judgment intended for us, taking all the sins of the world, past, present, and future, on his broken body. We declare Him our Lord and Savior because He rose from the dead to forever free us from sin and eternal separation from God. However, what I want us to ponder this Christmas Eve is not his deeds but why He chose to surrender His glory, bring Himself down to nothing, and allow Himself to be murdered in so humiliating and barbaric a fashion.

There are many ways to show that we love someone, but the most obvious is simply this: we desire to be in their presence. We do not worship a God that wants to keep his distance or puts us on the shelf as a project as if we were a bee colony or ant farm.

From Exodus to Revelation, the One in whom “all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” and who is “before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:15-17) declares without qualification that He wants to be with us! Isaiah's prophecy of Jesus' birth gave Him the name Immanuel, which means “God with us.”

As we prepare our minds and hearts this Christmas Eve to celebrate our Savior's birth, know that God's love for us is so deep that there is nowhere else He would rather be than here with you and me.

Merry Christmas, Mosaic!

Ron