|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|||
 |
|||
 |
|||
 |
|||
 |
|||
 |
|||
 |
|||
 |
|||
| The poverty’s the same. While we show till we drop for Christmas presents, starvation moves slowly, meticulously through a village in Sudan. A mother crosses the Rio Grande, because somehow she has to get to a place where she can work to buy medicine for her sick child. A homeless man hurries down a New York street so he can get first dibs sleeping on the grate where the heat comes up from below. The ethnic hatred, the political unrest, the scandals against the poor—much of our world looks just like that little town of Bethlehem did in Jesus’ day. “How still we see thee lie?” Probably 20 little boys lost their lives in that town because Herod was on a manhunt to kill Jesus. No, there was no peace the night Jesus was born, just like there is no peace in so many villages around the world today. It was the same for the Christians in 90 AD, when John saw a vision and then wrote what we have as the book of Revelation. He gave this message of hope to a persecuted people. They lived in what seemed a hopeless world, where the Roman emperor had complete power. To openly live as Christians meant possible torture or death. To these beleaguered people, the vision was all they had to hold onto as they waited. It’s what we have too, as still we wait. He’s coming back. Maranatha. Revelation 22 paints a Christmas picture better than any Hallmark card ever could. In vivid imagery, it describes the river of the water of life, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb. In this Christmas scene, God will dwell, not in a pillar of cloud and fire as of old, and not in a lonely manger, but enthroned in our midst. God will dwell with us again—in our very neighborhood. We will see God’s face. Continued... |
|||||||||
| Back |
Page 2 of 15
|
||||||||
