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A Cosmic Christmas

 In Advent, we celebrate the incarnation - the promised "Immanuel" - for God came among us in His Son.  The picture most often associated with Advent is a baby in a manger.  While I'm all for celebrating the birth of Christ, I also want to remember Christ existed from eternity's past.  While Jesus "entered" into this world as a baby, he did not begin to exist when the Holy Spirit planted the seed in Mary's womb.  

The scripture bears witness to Christ in eternity's past.  For example:

John 1:1-3
 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
 He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  

Genesis 1:1
 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

 Colossians 1:15-17
 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.   And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  

Daniel 7:13-14
 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.
 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

These all bear witness to the supremacy of Christ Jesus from eternity's past.  While the past reminds us of Christ's supremacy, it is the future picture of Christ - as the ascended Lord Jesus in Heaven that reminds us that what He is in heaven is far removed from what he was when walking this earth.  There is a much bigger Cosmic picture of Jesus in the last book of our Bible - Revelation.

Revelation 1:9-18
 I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet
 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,
 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.
 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire,
 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,  and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

The many paintings of Jesus - in the manger, with children, holding a lamb, walking with his disciples, hanging on the cross, and the resurrected Jesus - all give us a picture of a human being; but Revelation gives us a picture of a Cosmic - beyond this world - Jesus.  This picture displays Jesus in his Divinity, and reminds us of his eternality - "I am the first and the last, and the living one.  I died, and behold I am alive forevermore..."

This Cosmic picture of Christ reminds me that not only is Jesus supreme in his headship of all things in creation - including you and me - but he is also sufficient for all of our needs.  John fell at his feet.  I suggest that this is not just a proper response to seeing Jesus, rather, it is a probable response when we see Christ Jesus.  Would that the entire world knew this Jesus more than the one in the manger.

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