12-25-2022

Good Morning All,

       Luke 2:14; “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!

    One of the more iconic ballad/anthems of the early 1980’s was a song by Anne Murray called “A Little Good News.”  In the song she laments that there is fighting all around the world, the economy is in bad shape, and all she wants to hear is a little good news. She wants to hear about a county fair, that there really wasn’t much news because “nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain,” just a little good news is all she wants to hear.

    The thing that intrigues me about that song is that only the names change.  Her newscaster was Bryant Gumbel now it might be Carson Daly. It might have been Lebanon but now Ukraine, the economy is still up for argument, bad things still occur, death still rules the world. We could use a little good news, today.

    This song could have been sung a couple thousand years ago as well. The people of Judea were under the onerous rule of the Romans, who was making them get counted to make sure a little more tax could be squeezed from them. The religious leaders were demanding, self-serving tyrants, and life was very hard and oftentimes, hopeless. They needed a little good news, and they got it! A tiny band of forsaken shepherds were the first, but it quickly spread. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, who is Christ the Lord!” Then, the multitude of the heavenly host, filling the sky with wonder and music in an awesome display, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!”

    That same message of hope and peace is ours today. Even in the middle of all the world’s cares and despairs, we can have peace. We have peace with God which should give us peace in our heart that evil, pain, suffering, sorrow, and death will not win for Jesus came to change that. He came that you and I can look to the miraculous love that God has for us and see in Him our victor over all that assails us. We can know his peace now because He is our peace forever and his desire is that we may walk in His way, according to His mercy, that we may rest secure in the certainty of his unending love. We can rest in the absolute guarantee that our God, is a God who loves us beyond any measure, and we may have his peace forever.

    The news of the world is always bad, but the news of Jesus is always one of hope, a hope for a better tomorrow and a life eternally in God’s new paradise.

    Merry Christmas!! God’s blessed peace be upon you that you may know of his rest, his comfort, his unending love, and above all, that you may know that your salvation is secure in His name.

Loving Father, at this wondrous time we look to you for all of our hope and desire. Father, you alone give us good news, you alone give us peace. Guard our hearts to always look to you for the grace that you give us. Lead us to remember that the world and its victories are only temporary but that your love, shown to us in a baby born today, will never end. In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret