From the Pastor's Pen

Pastor Sally’s Devotional 12/11

| December 11, 2020

Dear friends,

I quite like this small “Holy Family” piece.  I have it sitting in my breakfast nook window.  It’s made of paper with wooden balls for the heads and painted faces.  It’s very simple and a little rumpled looking which is part of it’s charm for me.  From what we know, Mary and Joseph were poor.  When they presented Jesus in the temple they made the simple offering designated for the poor who couldn’t afford the regular offer.  These two were simple folk and I expect their clothing might have looked a little like this.

 

Dietrick Bonhoeffer says this it is “the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly… God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings.  God marches right in.  He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them.  God is near to lowliness;  he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”  I think Bonhoeffer’s list pretty much covers all of us.

 

As I was thinking about God’s loves for the lowly, it occurred to me that in comparison to Almighty God, every human on the earth is lowly.  We are finite creatures who stumble and choose wrong priorities and hurt people we love and make mistakes that cost us and our loved ones dearly.  I really don’t know anyone who doesn’t fall into this category of “very human.”  That’s why it is so extraordinary that God decided to become one of us so he could love us all the more and convince us that his love for us is real.

 

“What no eye has seen,

    what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived”—

    the things God has prepared for those who love him—

these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.”  I Cor 2: 9-10

 

Peace,

Pr. Sally

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