Category Archives: Advent

Exactly

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The 6th month on the Hebrew calendar roughly corresponds with our month of September – it varies from year to year.

26 Then in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by Adonai into a town in the Galilee named Natzeret 27 and to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Miriam.  source Luke 1 TLV 

Verse 26 and 27 – The Angel Gabriel was sent by GOD to a town in Galilee, a specific town, not just any town in Galilee but the town of Natzeret. Why? Because in that specific town was a young women of child-bearing age but not yet married, a virgin.

Now let’s let this give us some deep spiritual pleasure. GOD sent. GOD directed the Angel – which means GOD is active and GOD is in charge. Moreover, HE sent the Angel to a specific place because HE knew exactly where the young woman was. In any given moment GOD knows EXACTLY where YOU ARE. GOD knew this young woman personally! HE knew her habits, He knew her goings and comings. Let that settle in on you like you’ve never heard it before. Let the HOLY SPIRIT breathe something holy into your being that will hold you and love you.

OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID. That is SO important. You see GOD follows the rules. GOD does what HE says HE will do. The House of David. GOD made sure the lineage was exact. GOD made sure the bloodline was just as it was spoken by the Prophets of the Old Testament.

This should give us holy awe and gratitude that GOD is GOD. HE is faithful. HE is exact. HE is sure. HE does what HE does ON PURPOSE because His purpose is to save US! Save us from sin, from ourselves, from hell. Just flat-out SAVE us!

The virgin’s name was Miriam (we call her Mary) but GOD called her!

Where else the rest of this reading will go I do not know but just this far wraps me in LOVE and I wanted to share.  

Well, Now!

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A new word for me.

Eucatastrophe: A eucatastrophe is a sudden turn of events at the end of a story which ensures that the protagonist does not meet some terrible, impending, and very plausible and probable doom. The writer J. R. R. Tolkien coined the word by affixing the Greek prefix eu, meaning good, to catastrophe, the word traditionally used in classically inspired literary criticism to refer to the “unraveling” or conclusion of a drama’s plot. For Tolkien, the term appears to have had a thematic meaning that went beyond its literal etymological meaning in terms of form. In his definition as outlined in his 1947 essay “On Fairy-Stories”, eucatastrophe is a fundamental part of his conception of mythopoeia. Though Tolkien’s interest is in myth, it is also connected to the gospel; Tolkien calls the Incarnation of Christ the eucatastrophe of “human history” and the Resurrection the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation.    source – Wikipedia 

May our what we see as pending catastrophes be transformed into eucatastrophes by The Living Christ! 

But . . . I Will

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I got my doubts, I don’t see any way this will work and I have already tried to make it work, BUT at Your Word I will . . .  verse 5.

This is Simeon.  Luke 5.  I’m not faulting Simeon. He was honest. And he followed through. JESUS can work with that! JESUS does work with that!

Yet He would often slip away into the wilderness and pray.  source

That helps me!

Name Your Town

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Luke 4

Read and see what you shall see. 

There’s the temptation in the Wilderness. 
JESUS passes! The devil leaves until another time.

Verse 16
And He came to Natzeret, where He had been raised. As was His custom, He went into the synagogue on Shabbat, and He got up to read.

Do you see it? The place He had been raised.
As was His custom it says.
In the Synagogue on Shabbat!
This is JESUS!

He had been preaching other places and He was well received. The people were delighted to have Him in their villages and towns. 

But not so at ‘home’. 

Here He reads from Isaiah and He tells them the truth. They are furious. They break out into a rage. They intend to kill Him! 

Lets think back to the Wilderness. Satan takes Him to the highest point of the Temple and strongly suggests that He jump off. Satan even quotes Scripture to bolster his case. Like we said JESUS passes!

Back to Natzeret. A high cliff. Hmm. Wonder where they got this idea?

28 Now all in the synagogue were filled with rage upon hearing these things. 29 Rising up, they drove Him out of the town and brought Him as far as the edge of the mountain on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him off the cliff. 30 But passing through the middle of them, He went on His way. source 

And His Way takes Him to Capernaum; He speaks, He heals. They LOVE Him. They want Him to never leave!

Two Towns. We choose too.