THRILL of HOPE - Day 11

“The thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices…..”

 We have Christmas because Father is good.  We have it on Dec 25 (which isn’t Jesus’ birth date) because celebrating that goodness trumped all other pagan celebrations.  Christianity is a culture of His goodness that is to permeate all areas of society, time, calendar, systems, etc.  We are to be building life, homes, families, business, art, and economies in ways that make the old models of based on paganism, humanism, atheism, and mythology obsolete.  It’s not a fight with those things.  That battle was settled.  Jesus set Himself as the victor, and now we carry on that victory by living out that goodness. Then those things that don't measure up to that goodness fades away.  The days of our week are named from paganism and mythology, but no one pays attention to that because Jesus is now known as the Lord of time and each day is made by Him.  So now, the Sun god isn’t thought of when we say Sunday.  The Moon god isn’t thought of when we say Monday, or Thor isn’t thought of when we say Thursday.  The revelation of Him supersedes that.  We don’t have to fight about the 5^th day of the week being Thor’s day or Jesus’ day.  We just go on living the 5^th day as Jesus’.  

Christmas as the celebration of His arrival did that very thing.  It’s the principle of displacement.  Insert Jesus and what is not of Him is pushed to the side.  His prevailing goodness continues to displace deception.  Deception is continuing to get pushed out.  The understanding of His goodness is displacing concepts of Him being angry or mad or looking to punish.  Biblical understanding of hope (assurance) is pushing away the cultural understanding of hope (wish).  The view of Him being off somewhere distant and aloof is being pushed away by knowing He is here and closer than our skin.  Christmas strongly reminds us of Emmanuel and the history of Christmas being on December 25th reminds us that wrong views, wrong practices, wrong focuses can be overridden and displaced by what is more accurate.  

We are not trying to get to Him.  He already came to us.  That is another deception being displaced by reality/truth.  Emmanuel is here and is causing our lives and culture and calendars and systems to be more and more of the culture of His goodness.  Every day is His.