We received a Christmas letter this week from some people who are very dear to us. In it, they quipped that their part time hobby these days was going to funerals, which gave us a chuckle.
You pass into a phase in your life where death becomes more visible in daily life, and then the longer you walk through it, the more visible it becomes. Eventually, it walks beside you.
What struck us though, was the authority and assurance that the writer had of their future. I couldn’t help but feel as I read it, that the curtain, far from being brought down on their life, was coming up. They were looking forward to a new beginning. Life was about to start.
It’s such counter thinking in our world, that when you read it, it makes you sit up and think.
This world is in as big a mess as it has been since perhaps the beginning of the second World War. We have run out of answers of how to deal with major crises that threaten us on almost every street corner. Yet here were a couple who for most of their lives had lived humbly before God, serving him with the life he had given them. They had decided that their future was to be entrusted to one who could really be depended on. Not only that, but the death that was facing them at some point, was not the end of it all, but the beginning of everything. They would finally be able to live in the presence of the King and God they had chosen to serve all their lives.
This is all possible because of the person of Jesus Christ. We are told in the Bible, that we are saved into God, because of Jesus Christ. For those of us who believe, we have an inheritance in him that will never wear out. Our future is elsewhere.
Christmas is a worthy celebration of a deserving King and Saviour, despite it having been ransacked by godless people who trivialise everything. But peer behind the glitter and lights, and you will find the most incredible story. God saves us, literally, through his Son and through him, we can have an assurance and hope that one day we will live in his presence for all eternity, and that even death will not be able to hold us.
Our writings have only ever been about one thing, Jesus Christ. As far as we are concerned, what God has done through him for us all, takes our breath away. So, let us leave you with perhaps the greatest words ever written in history, as we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.
No other words bring such Hope Eternal.
I bring you good news of great joy, that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord – Luke 2:10-11
Yes! Our future is assured indeed through and only through the Lord Jesus. Loved what you have said and keep it up!
During those times we say farewell to those we love – thanks for reminding us of this, at the start of a New Year. When the curtain goes down for each of us, the show is just beginning… thanks for expressing this so well.