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This photo was taken by our daughter, Sarah Timmons, or my wife, depending on who you ask. We were in Rehoboth Beach, DE on Easter Sunday, 2011.


Several years ago, on the way home from a family vacation, I picked up a notebook and quickly recorded an incident that had occurred involving our son. Eventually, I used that story to illustrate something about my spiritual walk as a believer in Christ. Thus began a deliberate attempt to document the significance of everyday events. Almost any ordinary circumstance in daily life can become fodder for another story. This, almost by definition, lends itself to a blog.

Of course, many of the entries here are just ordinary diary style stuff... the stuff of ordinary blogs. Good grief, I don't want to be ordinary.


Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Unbelievable Story of Christmas

As I listened to Cloverton's remake of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", one particular line caught my attention:

"This baby boy would grow to be
A man and one day die for me and you"

Just for a moment, forget what you know.  Forget what you know about Christianity and about Christians. Forget about how they may irritate you, about how they may seem to try to impose their beliefs on you and the rest of society, about your opinion that they are nothing more than individuals looking for a way to overcome their weakness and find an easy way out.  Forget how you may have decided that religion is simply another of man's way of explaining the inexplicable, of making sense of an incomprehensible world, at least until science is able to. Forget how you may hold the opinion that anyone, given enough time and logical contemplation, will come to the opinion that Christianity is no different than any other religion, or maybe worse.

Forget all that, for just a moment, and consider the story told in the song- this person Jesus appears on earth as a child.

Never mind the part about his sacrificing his own life for the sake of all of humanity, or the part about his being raised from death.  Never mind the part about his going back to heaven, or his returning in the future. 

As the story goes, this Jesus was not just a man, but God Himself in the form of a man.  The whole story of Christmas starts out on a huge unbelievable foot.  Even if you make the leap that there is, in fact, a God, the idea of this God appearing in the form of a baby... well... that takes a crazy leap of faith to believe. 

If it didn't happen as the story is told, if Jesus was just another boy, then there's absolutely nothing to this thing we call Christianity. 

If it did happen, if God did show up in Bethlehem, right in the middle of the New and Old Testaments, then perhaps the Book is worth looking into.

Either way, whether you believe it or not, it's a great story.







A Hallelujah Christmas by Cloverton.
www.clovertonmusic.com
"Hallelujah" originally written by Leonard Cohen
Video by Wooten Media Productions

LYRICS
I've heard about this baby boy
Who's come to earth to bring us joy
And I just want to sing this song to you
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
With every breath I'm singing Hallelujah
Hallelujah

A couple came to Bethlehem
Expecting child, they searched the inn
To find a place for You were coming soon
There was no room for them to stay
So in a manger filled with hay
God's only Son was born, oh Hallelujah
Hallelujah

The shepherds left their flocks by night
To see this baby wrapped in light
A host of angels led them all to You
It was just as the angels said
You'll find Him in a manger bed
Immanuel and Savior, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

A star shown bright up in the east
To Bethlehem, the wisemen three
Came many miles and journeyed long for You
And to the place at which You were
Their frankincense and gold and myrrh
They gave to You and cried out Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I know You came to rescue me
This baby boy would grow to be
A man and one day die for me and you
My sins would drive the nails in You
That rugged cross was my cross, too
Still every breath You drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah