Messiah

The Christmas season officially begins for me not the day after Thanksgiving, nor when hanging lights on the house (which coincided this year for the first time), nor with the first Christmas party, but with the first morning I can sit down and listen to a goodly portion of Handel's Messiah- following the words in Timothy Bott's illustrated calligraphy book. As my ears and eyes fill my mind and heart with the wonderful words of prophecy set to beautifully glorious swirls of music and calligraphy, my heart overflows with an ecstasy which is an intermingling of joy and longing- a cycle of satisfaction and desire for more, and my eyes brim with tears. This is a worship experience of the highest order, which can only be enhanced by sharing with family and friends.

House of God

From daily reading: 2 Chronicles 6:1-2, 18

(my paraphrase) God, you have lived with us in a dark cloud, but now I have built you a temple for your dwelling--but heaven itself can't contain you, how much less a man-made building!

Later, God would confine himself to an even smaller place- Mary's womb!

In Donne's words:

Ere by the spheres time was created thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother ;
Whom thou conceivest, conceived ; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother,
Thou hast light in dark, and shutt'st in little room
Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb.

(Divine poems- Annunciation)

three-person'd God

The Father disciplines us as sons, even as he pities us as children.

He knows our frame, that we are dust.

The Son bore our punishment, and with his stripes we are healed.

The Spirit cries within us, "Abba! Father!" with groanings too deep for words.

The entire process belongs to him from beginning to end. His name is "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfastlove and faithfulness".

my heart

My heart is what needs changing. Anything less is window-dressing. Only the heart that is alive to faith can request to be broken and renewed.

Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

Fortunately, there is a balm in Gilead. There is healing. There is a transplant team- and a new heart available.

Jeremiah 24:7

I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.

Batter

Not the noun, the verb. I have seen a graphic example of battery the last few days. Two dear ones were battered and broken in a car wreck, one physically, and the other emotionally. In a ripple effect, many others were shocked and frightened initially, before the good news of likely complete recovery; and then saddened and burdened by shared pain.

Psalm 119:67,71

Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.