After falling behind – first time in this Advent season – I’m combining the 3rd and 4th days of Christmas.
On the 3rd day of Christmas my true love gave to me three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Christ Jesus is the partridge in the pear tree – a testament to the partridge’s willingness to die for her young. The two turtle doves can be thought of God’s faithful covenanted love which we bear witness to in both the Old and New Testaments (see the previous two blogs).
On this third day God (my true love) gave to each of us three great aspects of his character and virtue: “Faith, Hope and Love”.
Our Reading:
1 Corinthians 13:4-13 (NRSV)
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;
10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
And,
On the 4th day of Christmas my true love gave to me Four Calling Birds,
Three French Hens, Two Turtle Doves, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.
The Four French Hens signify the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Here we hear God calling to us to follow Christ. He is the epitomy of faith, hope and love.
Our Readings:
John 1:1-5 (NRSV)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being
4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
John 1:14-18 (NRSV)
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'")
16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
John 7:37-39 (NRSV)
37 On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,
38 and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.'"
39 Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
John 20:30-31 (NRSV)
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
In the Gospels is the revelation of the Word…the word made flesh – incarnated – and this flesh lived among his people, and still does today.
The greatness of these two days is the revelation of God’s purpose being fulfilled in the witness of his Son… the one who is “full of grace and truth”.
Prayer:
“Father, I thank you for the witness of your character in Jesus. To you Lord Jesus is majesty. You are full of both grace and truth. At times Lord, I can be grace full, but usually struggle then to be totally truthful. At times Lord, I can be truthful, but usually struggle to be full of grace. I ask you for the indwelling presence of your Holy Spirit to make me be like you Jesus.”
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