Christmas Eve Services
4:00 and 5:30 Contemporary
6:30 Traditional
Christmas in its purest form is about the invisible God becoming visible. It is about blind eyes being opened to see God.
Shelby was blind for 51 years. She couldn’t see a thing. Her world was a black hall of sounds and smells. She felt her way through decades of darkness and then she could see. A skilled surgeon performed a very complicated surgery and for the first time Shelby had sight.
“I never dreamed yellow was so…….yellow. I can see the shape of the moon and I like nothing better to see a jet plane scream across the sky leaving a vapor trail. Most of all I love to stare at sunrises, sunsets and star studded nights . I didn’t know how wonderful it was to see!”
She is right. Those of us who have been given a life time of vision can’t know how wonderful it must be to be given sight, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what it is like to be blind.
You may have seen a thousand rainbows and not seen the grandeur of one. You might walk by a flower garden every day and never see the splendor of a single rose. A man can live a lifetime with a woman and never pause to see the beauty of her soul.
And a person can be all that goodness calls him to be and never see the Author of Life. Being honest or moral doesn’t mean we will see him. We may see what other see in him. Or we may hear what he said, but until we see him for ourselves, until our own sight is given, we may think we see him but we may only see a hazy form in the gray semi darkness.
Have you seen him? Have you caught a glimpse of His Majesty? Have you seen the bronzed Galilean who spoke with thunderous authority and loved with a child like humility? Have you seen the One who claimed to be older than time and greater than death? Have you seen him?
Those who do have never been the same. In a instant gone is the pomp of religion and the meaningless controversy of opinion and theology. Time stands still, broken hearts are healed, confused minds are made clear and loveless lives are filled with …….irrational love.
Have you seen Jesus? Those who do will never be the same.
Thomas cried “My Lord and my God.”
Mary exclaimed ‘I have seen the Lord.”
John declared “We have seen his glory.”
The two on the road to Emmaus “Were not our hearts burning while he talked?”
But Peter said it best “We were eyewitnesses to his majesty.”
Has it been a while since you have seen Jesus? Join us on Christmas Eve as we celebrate the miracle of the invisible God becoming visible. Join us as we marvel at the sight of God becoming flesh and blood so that we might see love in all its beauty. Join us and first hand be an eyewitness to his majesty.
And if you really want to see Jesus, bring your family and friends who have been blinded to the beauty of life because of hardship, disappointment and meaningless days. Bring a coat so Jesus can be warm when he is walking the street among the homeless. And don’t forget to bring your birthday gift to Jesus, equal Christmas dollars spent gifting your family and friends, so that the lost and least in Ethiopia might experience Jesus first hand. One of the best ways to see Jesus is through the reflection of blind eyes being opened.
I pray by the time our Christmas Eve Celebrations are over and everyday of your life you will be able to declare with Peter….”I was an eyewitness to his Majesty.”
Merry Christmas
Rick
