As you may know, this past Sunday officially kicked off the Advent Season and therefore the singing of hymns about Jesus' birth. Though I've always wondered why we don't sing these great songs more frequently throughout the year. I was responsible for putting together the worship service (i.e. bulletin) this Sunday and so I chose for us to sing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." And while we were singing it I was really hit hard by the fact that God has come to dwell with us. The God-man Jesus came into the world He created and lived among sinners like me. And then if that weren't enough, He suffered and died, even though He'd done nothing wrong, so I could have life.
I watched a series of talks from a men's conference with a couple other guys last week and One of the points that the speaker made that really stuck with me was his comparison of the Lord Jesus dwelling with sinners like us to a person climbing into a bacteria filled septic tank to clean it out. That's probably the best analogy I've ever heard of explaining Emmanuel, "God with us." But even as gross as this comparison is, it doesn't even come close to the Creator dwelling with and dying for His sinful creation.
Now I usually wait until after Thanksgiving to put the Christmas lights up (out of principle) but due to suffering through poor weather in late November last year, I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather we've had this year to get the lights up early. And I even remember to hammer in the stakes for the candy-cane pathway lights before the ground froze. I missing one stake because last year I didn't consider what would happen if you tried to hammer plastic into frozen ground. Suiffice it to say I had to find a stick to use as a makshift stake. We also upgraded ladders from an old, rickety wooden one to a new telescoping variety. But even though the light have been up for a week, I refused to turn them on until after Thanksgiving (out of principle).
I'm excited that high school basketball season is starting up. This year I will be coaching the JV team (assuming we have enough guys play). I'm looking forward to reconnecting with the eighth graders (now freshman) that I coached last year as part of the Junior High team. Even though we'll probably have at best a dozen guys for two teams, I believe there's some good talent there and all but two of the guys are older than Sophmores so there's some hope for the future as well. I'll keep you updated as to how things go as the season progresses. Pray for me to be intentional about building relationships with the guys and mindful of my words and actions around them.
By God's Grace, Jeff
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