{"id":8377,"date":"2004-12-22T18:33:56","date_gmt":"2004-12-22T23:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=8377"},"modified":"2011-07-06T08:28:47","modified_gmt":"2011-07-06T13:28:47","slug":"4015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2004\/12\/22\/4015\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember to Peer into the Face of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

PORTAGE, IN (December 22, 2004)\u00a0 – Editor’s note: In preparation for the\u00a0 Christmas observance, Covenant Communications is sharing seven\u00a0 devotionals that originally appeared in local church newsletters and are\u00a0 being published here by permission. The following comes from Jody Sen,\u00a0 co-pastor at the Evangelical Covenant Church. She reflected on a\u00a0 Christmas experience after reading the late Mike Yaconelli’s book\u00a0 “Dangerous Wonder,” an adventure of childlike faith.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Jody Sen<\/p>\n
When I was little, the most fun I had on Christmas morning was opening\u00a0 the stockings. It was the first thing bleary-eyed mom and dad let us open.<\/p>\n
My mom went all out (with packing the stockings). She would wrap every\u00a0 single thing, every pack of gum, every chapstick and pair of socks. Mom\u00a0 was a stocking maniac! But when we got older, stockings lost their charm \u2013 we wanted to get to the bigger and better of Christmas morning. We\u00a0 would forget about the stockings until the middle of our Christmas\u00a0 movie, or late in the afternoon. And we would get a little excited,\u00a0 something new to open, probably socks but maybe something cool, too. We\u00a0 lost the excitement over something mom still worked on, but mom continued to do it.<\/p>\n
One Christmas I was away at college and able to come home for Christmas.\u00a0 It was late Christmas Eve and mom was about to talk my ear off. She was\u00a0 happy to have me home, but I had a surprise I wanted to get to.<\/p>\n
A few days before, while in the midst of finals, mom had told me she\u00a0 could not do the stockings that year. She felt horrible about it, but I\u00a0 kept telling her it was not a big deal, that we didn’t mind, that\u00a0 stockings were unnecessary. An idea was forming in my sleep-deprived\u00a0 brain (however). I would secretly take the job of the stockings. So, my\u00a0 mom was talking my ear off on Christmas Eve but I still had a few things\u00a0 to wrap.<\/p>\n
I did not appreciate all the work my mom did with those stockings; it\u00a0 takes forever to wrap everything for five stockings, six if you count\u00a0 the one the pets shared. I had to pretend to fall asleep on mom so she\u00a0 would go to bed to leave me to my secret work. I had a great time\u00a0 staying up very late to stuff the stockings and was excited to see who\u00a0 would notice.<\/p>\n
In light of Yaconelli’s book, it is not surprising that it was my\u00a0 youngest sister, Jaime, who noticed the stockings. And listening to\u00a0 their dialogue over the stockings was so much fun I finally burst out\u00a0 laughing and confessed and everyone was interested in stockings again. I\u00a0 loved to see mom’s stocking full; she had never spent her energy on\u00a0 herself and made sure it was fun for us.<\/p>\n
But I’m not just writing about peering into a stocking at Christmas. It\u00a0 is appreciating the gifts of God in family, in friends, in time spent\u00a0 with and for others. It is peering into the face of God. It is peering\u00a0 into the manger. Can you imagine the joy felt by those Magi that came to\u00a0 visit Jesus as a child, some months after he was born? Can you imagine\u00a0 the joy the shepherds felt that night as they visited Jesus after he was\u00a0 born?<\/p>\n
Every year, Christmas is a time of brushing up against that joy of God’s\u00a0 creation, of a joyful God sending His son to the earth He created in\u00a0 order to save it from itself. I believe that when God was speaking the\u00a0 world into place, He was having a great time! After each thing He made, He said it was good. The only thing that was not\u00a0 good was that the man was alone, so God fixed that. And suddenly there\u00a0 was human fellowship and family and God was at the center of it all.\u00a0 What a great party!<\/p>\n
But we forget that – we cruise through life, often at breakneck speed,\u00a0 and miss the joy that God intended for us. We miss the laughter of\u00a0 children, sun rays through clouds, the vibrant colors of fall, and\u00a0 raindrops through the trees. And at Christmas time, the film between\u00a0 Heaven and earth is at its thinnest and we miss the joy of that.<\/p>\n
Memories of the past can be a huge barrier that can block our ability to\u00a0 experience joy. But can we choose the good to remember? We can ask God\u00a0 to touch and redeem those memories. Only He can take the sting out of\u00a0 them – He can accomplish so much more than we can on our own. Or we can\u00a0 find a spiritual partner, much like what Mary did in her going to stay\u00a0 with Elizabeth after Gabriel gave her the news of the Son she would have. Mary could have done many things: she could have hid in shame, she\u00a0 could have slinked off in the night, but she went with her cousin, who\u00a0 was also pregnant. And her stay with Elizabeth was so inspiring and\u00a0 God-led that Mary sang a song of joy, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).\u00a0 Journaling can also be helpful, not just to dwell on the events but to\u00a0 ask God to come in and heal them, inviting the Holy Spirit to give\u00a0 insight, guidance and help . . .<\/p>\n
The simple fact of the season is this: God sent His only Son, whom he\u00a0 loved, to save the creation He made, whom He also loved. The God who\u00a0 spoke the Heavens into place, who breathed life into the nostrils of the\u00a0 first human, sent His Son to be born among us as flesh and blood. God\u00a0 sent Him to live with us as a brother, teacher and friend. And God sent\u00a0 Him to die for us so that we might again – as it was intended in the\u00a0 beginning – have fellowship restored. All this so that we could live\u00a0 eternally with God.<\/p>\n
“Santa” brings gifts, but Jesus is THE gift. Let’s all hold onto that.\u00a0 When we peer into our stockings, may we not forget to peer into the face\u00a0 of God, that Baby that was born to us so long ago, in the manger, under\u00a0 a cold sky, under His own star that He created with God. That is an\u00a0 amazing wonder, an amazing joy.<\/div>\n
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Copyright \u00a9 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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PORTAGE, IN (December 22, 2004)\u00a0 – Editor’s note: In preparation for the\u00a0 Christmas observance, Covenant Communications is sharing seven\u00a0 devotionals that originally appeared in local church newsletters and are\u00a0 being published here by permission. The following comes from Jody Sen,\u00a0 co-pastor at the Evangelical Covenant Church. She reflected on a\u00a0 Christmas experience after reading the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRemember to Peer into the Face of God - Covenant Newswire Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2004\/12\/22\/4015\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Remember to Peer into the Face of God - Covenant Newswire Archives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PORTAGE, IN (December 22, 2004)\u00a0 – Editor’s note: In preparation for the\u00a0 Christmas observance, Covenant Communications is sharing seven\u00a0 devotionals that originally appeared in local church newsletters and are\u00a0 being published here by permission. 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