Journeying through Advent 2017 with the Apostle Paul



Advent is a time of anticipation....as we dress the house with well-loved decorations, experiment with new colour schemes for the tree, organise our on-line shopping and browse Christmas recipes that maybe this year we'll get round to making, we look forward to telling again the story of a baby in a manger, shepherds and angels, wise men following a star.

One of the first people to record in writing the story of Jesus was the apostle Paul. Scholars believe that his earliest letters were written less than 30 years after Jesus died. But Paul spends no time in his letters describing Jesus' birth. We won't find any of the details from our Christmas cards in Paul's writing.

One story that Paul does tell, several times, is his own. He was not a shepherd, he did not come from a rural village in Galilee, and he never married let alone had anything to do with babies. He grew up in a time and place where stories of Jesus were more likely to create tension, conflict and violence than warm, fuzzy feelings...in fact, a time much like ours. During Advent 2017, when perhaps we struggle to see the nativity story as anything more than a cute myth, comforting but out of touch with our real lives today, let's walk with Paul on his journey to Jesus.

Paul writes in Ephesians 3: 7,8 (The Message)
This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ.
How do you feel about the story of God coming to earth as a baby in Bethlehem? 
As you consider the nativity story, do any of Paul's words strike a chord with you- 'a sheer gift'; 'a real surprise'; 'God handling the details' ?

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