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Because we wouldn’t need a Savior if we didn’t need to be saved <3

I realize that in the songs I have given as my favorites this week, there is a common thread.

The same common thread that has run throughout humanity since such a short time into our story.

Three chapters into Genesis, the first humans decided that God was holding out on them and if they took matters into their own hands, they could accelerate the process and just be their own god.

It didn’t work.

It never has.

It never will.

So as God, Himself, sacrificed the first animals to clothe His beloved children in garments of skin to cover their shame and nakedness, He sent them on their way and yet went with them.

And He had a plan.

And those are the lines that grab my heart in the carols and songs and hymns of Christmas.

Rob our sin and make us holy….from Welcome to our World/Chris Rice

The wrong shall fail, the Right prevail….from I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day/ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Cast out our sin and enter in, be born  in us today….Oh little Town of Bethlehem/Phillips Brooks

Today I am reflecting on a modern carol, Mark Lawry’s Mary, did You Know?

I listened to several version this morning and there is a beautiful rendition by Pentatonix but I have miles to go before I sleep…so you must google that one yourself, my dear friends <3

I love how Lowry has filled the manger with the wonders that would come from three years of ministry across a small portion of acreage and yet stretches across the expanse of eternity.

But the line that jumps out every time is the question Mark would have posed to this teen mom if he could interview her about that blessed night…

Mary…did you know He would save our sons and daughters…did you know that the one YOU delivered tonight…will soon deliver you?      

It catches in my spirit and squeezes tight the muscles that seem to fuel those ever-present tears of mine.

I swallow hard as the truth of it all wells up from the places in me that know so well…I need a Savior because I need saving.

I am born into sin, prone to sin, and yet delivered from sin by a sinless Savior.

This is what Christmas is to me.

That God so loved the world.

That God so loved me and my husband and our sons and our daughters…that He came.

That the Hand that killed the first animals in the garden to cover sin and shame, sent His only Son to die that we might live <3

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. Laura, you have put into words what I feel. I love this. I love the lyrics of the carols you listed. I love the melodies. How Many Kings by Down Here is also one of my all time favorites; “How many fathers gave up their sons for me? Only one did that for me.” Oh how we are loved!

    1. Thank you Susan. Yes, that one you mentioned is a favorite as well. As you say – the melody and words of these just go together and tell the wonderful story <3 Have a blessed Christmas

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