The Second Day of Advent

The Second Day of Advent

Monday, December 4, 2017

 

I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food, and all drank from the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock, which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.

I Corinthians 10:1-4

 

 

Jesus said unto them. . . , “The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.”

Matthew 21:42

 

It is way too easy for us to look at a little crèche in our homes or in the church or in some lovely book and feel warm and fuzzy as we consider that first Christmas and the wonder of God coming as a baby. Men and women – especially women – cannot resist a beautiful baby. We want to hold him, smell his little baby fragrance, and touch his fingers and toes. It’s way too comfortable to just see Jesus as a baby.

 

If we stay near the cradle of Christ too long, we will stunt our own spiritual growth. We will never go on and grow up! We stay, as the preacher said in Hebrews, infants able only to take milk, never able to eat the strong meat of the gospel. Little babies are cute as long as they stay little, but if they grow to mature physical size but mentally and spiritually stay as little babies, they suddenly become considerably less appealing. And the gospels do not let us linger too long on the infant or even the child Jesus.

 

Quickly the writers move us to the man, and we see Christ as The Rock. I remember once being in a class where the professor talked about this. He said this rock was no pebble! This rock was, as one commentary says, “a stone of great mass,” a great boulder! Our Christ is very strong and immovable!

 

Corinthians says that Moses and his huge entourage drank from and were fed by “the rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” As I read that, I thought about moss, and how it holds to and lives on the nutrients from a rock. It’s quite secure and thrives there. So too can we hold on to our Rock and be sustained spiritually by him.

 

We have a choice. We reject him or we hold on to him. Which one? He wants to be the most important part – the very cornerstone of our faith.

 

Father, we have decided to become disciples of Christ. Teach us what that means! Teach us who this Christ is – his attributes including his great strength as a solid foundation for our faith. Help us, Lord, to hold on like moss and be nourished by the strength gained from our Rock. Amen.

 

The Light of the World
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, 2008,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator.