Merry Christmas Everyone! Whatever we believe about the actual timing and circumstances of our savior’s birth, I hope we won’t miss the opportunity provided by the season to share the good news! There is a reason that He came. There is a reason that we celebrate it. The hope of humanity, the Lord of life became one of us to die for all of us. There is no Christmas without Christ. There is no salvation without the Savior.

I am taking a break from our study of John’s gospel because we will have our Christmas celebration on the 17th and there will be no service on Christmas eve. We will resume with Chapter 17 in the new year so that we may be able to get through it uninterrupted. In this chapter, God the Son prays to God the Father for His disciples and also for us. What a wonderful window into the very heart of God! I want us to be able to soak up every word, and, as much as is possible given the constraints of our meeting, see the prayer as a whole.

So, this Sunday, we’ll pick up the Christmas theme and take a close look at who Jesus is and why it matters. I won’t be telling you anything new, but I hope that by keeping it fresh in our minds we will be able during this time of opportunity to (paraphrasing from 1 Peter 3:15) “make a defense to everyone who asks us to give an account for the hope that is in us.” We know our God to be eternal, having no end and no beginning. Yet we celebrate the day when God was born.