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 A Basket of Bread, A Cup Of Wine And Emmanuel--by Vickie Shepherd O come and be filled with the Manna sent from God, come to Bethlehem where the �bread basket� overflows in an earthen cove, which shelters the Glory of God. Jesus was born to a family of diminutive means, his father a carpenter and his mother a young virgin bride. Mary, immaculately conceived that she might carry no stain of mans sinful nature, the pure vessel for the anointed one to become the newborn deity. The Heavenly Father sent the Son of man into this world to be born, cherished, loved and nourished by his family. It is a reminder that we too are part of this miracle of life, and that we come into this world as infants and are expected to return to the Father as a child. Jesus told us in scripture that in order to enter the Kingdom we must enter with the innocence of a child. That is a hard thing for us to master in this day of worldly passions, when the normal thing to do is act grown up or act like part of the �in� crowd. Jesus has left us with many examples in scripture and the Holy Spirit is there to show us the way and remind us of the Word. We must approach the sanctuary of our Lord with a humble heart and become lowly in our earthly stature. He asks us to give up our possessions and come to Him without strings attached to our earthly existence, even as much as to deny our family when it comes to following Him. His apostles showed us by example when Jesus came to them and said, �Come, follow Me.� and they immediately left their jobs and families to become His disciples. We live in a world that doesn�t recognize the true meaning of Christmas; it is a merchants� paradise and the bane of parents everywhere when they envision the crazed shoppers pushing and shoving to buy the newest item on the consumers top ten list. We need to bring the �spirit� back into Christmas, there is actually nothing Christian about the tradition of gift giving on this date. The date of Christmas is centered around the pagan holiday and celebrations of the Yule. We can break the word Christmas into the two words Christ and Mass-- a special liturgy to celebrate the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The Prince of Peace was a baby born to die the punishment that a thief would pay, on the cross. What crime did Jesus commit? Was he stealing anything more than our hearts and souls? He came that we would be �saved� the darkness of death, and he becomes the light in the darkness. �Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us�. (*Pp. Gal. 4:19) In the Bible we can see from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation that the Father had planned this Incarnation with the most intricate weaving of covenants, family lines, royalty, prophesy and most of all with �Love�. God�s love for us, the sinners; was so great that He could hardly bear the pain that our sometimes (stupid) mistakes would cause Him. Therefore He had the foresight to come up with the plan of our salvation, God came that He could experience life among us; He also knew that the only sacrifice that could equal the most precious thing in the world would be the shedding of man�s blood. What would be the most painful sacrifice someone can make? To give his own life for another-and that is what the Father did, he sent His son to become the sacrifice. Any parent would suffer from the death of a child, and to send His only son for this greatest of all sacrifices would have been devastating, except for the fact that He knew His son would return to Him. The death of Jesus was devastating for everyone He knew, his mother at the foot of the cross, and his friends, yet; Jesus promised to return. Better nevertheless, he promised to send a replacement when He did return to the Father; He would send the third person of the Holy Trinity--the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus would be resurrected from the dead, meant that he would also be known as the �first born of the dead�, being �reborn� in the Spirit. Only the power of the Holy Spirit could bring a man back to life again (Genesis 2:7), we share in this glory of God each Christmas when we remember our Lord and His birth. Jesus has promised us that those who believe in Him shall never die, our souls are eternal and we have given them freely to him, living on forever in Heavenly glory with God-even though our physical bodies will perish. One day after our earthly existence God promised that we will be resurrected also, we must be enduring until the day that happens. The Father has asked us also to have our personal affairs in order so that we can live with Him once again, this being our confession of Jesus Lordship over all subsistence (life). The cup of wine, the precious blood that Christ shed for us is a blessing cup. Jesus has asked that we partake in this union of flesh and blood; His body and blood are our Eucharistic feast. We are all invited to the feast, and we shall be dressed in the chaste garment of our Baptism when we return to Him. �O marvelous exchange! Man�s creator has become man born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity�. (Antiphon 1 Evening prayer of Jan. 1st) *pp= paraphrased Vickie Shepherd �Copyright 2001 Vickie Shepherd. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be used without the express written permission of the author. |
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