"Emmanuel: Glimpses of God Incarnate," December 17

Friday, December 17

Ephesians 4:6

“God the One”

GLIMPSES OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE, as in Ephesians 4:6, convey identity markers that help us understand who Jesus is and what his birth means to our world. As the very name “Emmanuel” means, the Advent season is about the scripture as divine word, that in Christ’s resurrection from the dead all things are become new. This message of hope is there for us to embrace each day no matter how heavy the burden of disappointment and the sense of loss may weigh us down. Thank God that the divine message of Easter hope does not depend upon our ability to translate its reality but upon God’s amazing grace by which God makes all things new: the dayto-day of the life born and cultivated each day in faith ... thanks be to the God of Easter hope, especially in the face of tragic loss and dreadful acts of human brutality for which we seek divine help for deliverance. It is time for us to celebrate the miraculous interventions of the God who makes all things new in the day-to-day experiences of our lives.

There are so many examples of such interventions if we but open our eyes to these moments of “God with us” in our daily walk. It becomes a matter of our longing to behold them. God, it would seem, is far more eager to help our vision than we are to have new eyes—Easter eyes, as it were. May it become a sincere longing of the heart for each of us in our daily journey to celebrate God’s new day, hand in hand with one another, as the new day of resurrection hope becomes the beacon guiding our footsteps into the new day of God’s blessed promises. Amen.

– Rev. Dr. John Alsup, The First Presbyterian Church, Shreveport, D. Thomason Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies