Pastor Joe Sanders - December 27, 2009
The Christmas Battle
We often associate peace and quiet with Christmas, especially the first Christmas. We have peaceful manger scenes with still animals, reverent shepherds, a quiet little baby with a tiny halo, as if the restlessness of the world stopped when Jesus was born. But did it? And what about us? Christmas is one of the craziest times of the year, not a quiet, peaceful "silent night, holy night." Interestingly, the Bible really doesn't paint the picture of the first Christmas that we think it does. Scripture is full of battle language and presents that first Christmas as the turning point of the war that is raging around us at all times. As we go through our own difficulties and pain, will we miss the battlefield lessons that we are supposed to be learning? We see that the historic conflict that surrounds us was ever so active at Jeus' birth and that our Commander expects us to participate on the winning side- and having done all, to stand firm.