The Sixth Day of Advent, 2016

Friday, December 2, 2016
by Patience Nave

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you perceive it?  I am making a new way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.  Isaiah 43:18-19  

God tells me in Isaiah that He is doing a new thing! And He asks, Do you perceive it? My immediate response is that I do perceive it. I do understand that God was going to give the greatest Christmas gift ever to the world – the Infant Jesus! But do I?

If I’m not careful, Christmas becomes old hat! I read the beautiful story from Luke about the shepherds on the hillside. I listen to the Messiah and the Manheim Steamroller Christmas Album because it’s what I do at Christmas. I watch children act out the Christmas drama, in bathrobes with towels on their heads. It’s the same every year, and though I go through it with a certain reverence, it is still the same very year!

If I can go about the preparation and the celebration without enthusiasm and joy, do I really perceive it? I think not. The baby Jesus won’t be born again. That historical fact is completed. But I believe God wants his people to have fresh insight into how that new thing impacted the world, and what He wants to do in us because of Jesus. I know He isn’t finished with me, but at least He has started! Paul tells me that He who began a good work in [me] will perfect it (Philippians 1:6). I trust Him, and I’ll wait to see it spring up, new, as He promised.

Father, you know that I only perceive with shallow understanding this new thing that you have done in bringing the Messiah to us. Help me to understand with fresh awareness. Amen.

And Then It Was Christmas: A Journey Toward Christmas
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, 2006,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator.