No Longer Home Alone
Corey Widmer's Christmas Eve message
One of the most enduring qualities of the human experience is loneliness. We all carry around a sense of relational estrangement, either with God, other people, or both. We long to be home. Christmas is the good news that God has come home to his world, and because he has come home we are no longer alone.
“Christ of the cosmos, living Word, come to heal and save...Incognito, in our streets, beneath the concrete, between the cracks, behind the curtains, within the dreams, in aging memories, in childhood wonder, in secret ponds, in broken hearts, in Bethlehem stable, still small voice, Word of God, amongst us.”
Brian Woodcock and Jan Pickard
Scripture Texts:
Isaiah 52:7-10; 62:11-12
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” 8 The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion. 9 Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. 10 The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
11 Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.” 12 And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.
John 1:9-14
9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children
of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth.