So I've been throwing the idea of a blog around for some time now, mainly as a semi-journal for myself just to write my thoughts down, and I decided tonight was the night. And since we are in the midst of the Christmas season, I thought I would speak to that.
I arrived in Aurora on Saturday for some much needed leave after completing an engineering course at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. That evening, my family an I attended a live nativity scene at their church. I had never attended one before and to be honest, was a little nervous. Luckily, there was not a live birth and they substituted a baby doll in place of a real child so my fears were proven false. Members of the church acted out the nativity as a soundtrack narrated everything. When they reached the part where the shepherds in the fields are told of Jesus' birth, a particular line stuck out to me that I had not noticed before. Actually, I had noticed it before but never really thought about it. The line went like so "...and the glory of the Lord shone around about them..." After we got back home, I went and read through the Christmas story in Luke again and the verse comes from Luke 2:9 "An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified." I really began to think about that verse and what the glory of the Lord must have looked like. These shepherds were some of the very first people, in all of history, to learn of the birth of Jesus Christ, THE Son of God. The heavens opened up and an entire choir of angels began singing praises to God and God's glory was shone to these lowly shepherds. We already know how proud God was of his son when John the Baptist baptized Jesus and God sent the dove down. I can't even imagine what his glory must have looked like when his son was born. To think of the heavens opening up, and then all of the angels signing praises to God and God's glory shining down around the shepherds is so incredible. This is the God of the entire universe, the one supreme being who created you, me, everything that we touch, see, discover...it's hard to even imagine what they saw as God showed his glory to them. To be honest, I'm jealous.
Needless to say, this definitely put me in the Christmas spirit and got me ready to celebrate one the of the most important days in history. With that being said, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and urge you to think about what Christmas means to you and if that meaning corresponds to the real meaning of Christmas, the meaning that God intended it for. That's all for now, enjoy your holidays and I'll be back soon.
