Have a glorious Christmas

After this long (welcome to some) silence, I thankfully break into cyberspace in time to greet you as we race to Christmas Day.  At last my pain is subsiding and my leg has returned to near normal usage.  The doctor warned me that it would likely take up to eight weeks and he was right. Though physiotherapy, acupuncture, erratic exercises have helped the process.  So, I shall be able to worship tomorrow morning in flesh, which is rather what, on the biggest scale imaginable, the world-changing miracle of Christmas is all about. God coming in flesh among us. 

On Facebook yesterday I saw a quote from one of my favourite authors, E. Stanley Jones. "The early Christians did not say in dismay 'Look what the world has come to,' but in delight 'Look at what has come into the world'."

Today's reading in a book of readings through the year, has Catherine Booth (wife of William Booth)  writing on the mystery of the Incarnation.  

Humanity must have a deliverer able to save, and no less than the Almighty deliverer was equal to the task. Here all merely human deliverers, all philosophers and teachers of the world had failed because they could only teach, they could not renew... rectify the heart. They could set up a standard, enunciate a doctrine, but they could not remove man's inability....Man needed some being outside of himself, above him and yet able to understand and pity him in his utmost guilt and misery, and helplessness - able to inspire him with a new life, to impart light, love, strength, and endurance, and to do this always and everywhere, in every hour of darkness, temptation and danger....God's expedient for showing this to man was to come in the flesh. How else could God have revealed himself to fallen man?

So, enjoy a glorious Christmas tomorrow wherever you are and celebrate this best news this world had ever heard.  God has intervened to deliver us. With delight let's say "Look at what has come into our world".