Reason for the Season

​            Advent is upon us and Jesus is the reason for the season….  I know what you might be thinking: “Tony, reason for the season is so cliché-ish, tired and overused.”  Perhaps.  But, simply because we may be overly familiar or overly saturated, does not diminish the phrase’s message:  There would be no Christmas/Advent season if God had not become flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.  There is nothing more profound than this reality.
            U2 Rock band lead singer Bono (who claims to follow Jesus, though a bit unconventionally) helps place the incarnation into perspective.  After returning home from a long tour, Bono returned to Dublin and attended a Christmas Eve service. At some point in that service, Bono grasped the truth at the heart of the Christmas story: in Jesus, God became a human being. With tears streaming down his face, he realized:
 
The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself by becoming a child born in poverty … and straw, a child, I just thought, "Wow!" Just the poetry … I saw the genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this … Love needs to find a form, intimacy needs to be whispered … Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh.
 
            Couldn’t have said it better myself.  But, perhaps John the Gospel writer does, “The Word became flesh and his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
 
Merry Christmas and keep the faith,
 
Pastor Tony
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