Silver! Gold! Sparkly stuff! People enjoy adorning themselves with finery, and identifying with the specialness to which it points. Sports stars wear fancy necklaces, and their fans try to duplicate them. The “beautiful people” on TV all seem to wear a lot of bling. It’s a common feature to get dressed up when something special is happening. Not to be bested, scriptural passages to be read on the upcoming weekend call believers to affirm this specialness.
Third ISAIAH offers a “psalm” of praise in behalf of the returned Exiles, vv.61:10-62:3. Their robes and garlands and jewels are those of righteousness and salvation, “the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.” Christmas has reminded us that God really does care about us; we shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. This “new name” indicates a change, a growth pattern. Even the Grinch has discovered the spirit of Christmas!
GALATIANS 4:4-7 retells the Nativity story in a nutshell: God sent his Son, familiar with the Jewish law, that we would receive adoption as God’s own children. Thomas R. Steagald contends that “this filial devotion, an act of radical freedom, exalts strangers and orphans and slaves to the status of family members.” (FEASTING on the WORD, B 1:161) Thus all have put on the royal robes of the Crown Prince, with all the duties and privileges thereunto pertaining.
And so there come to us Simeon and Anna, pillars of the Jerusalem Temple, found only in LUKE 2:22-40. These two somehow “got it” that Jesus was a special baby, the perceived Messiah and the source of salvation. It says nothing here about putting on gold & silver or sparkly stuff; but their lives were fulfilled and they glittered with continued awareness. Not only did Anna glow with the Spirit, but she “began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem”.
From Germany, we receive the invitation to “Deck Thyself, My Soul with Gladness, Leave the Gloomy Haunts of Sadness.” As you don your gay apparel, sing lustily the ancient news that God has given the Very Best in order that Eternity may be seen and entered.
In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King
Note Well–I’ll still continue to write my blog about upcoming scriptural lessons every Tuesday; but you will have to access these only at my website, horacebrownking.com
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