As you read this article hopefully you are well into the Christmas Season with...

decorations, presents, and songs. This truly is a wonderful time of year. One that is filled with spiritual meaning and significance as we think about our Savior’s birth.


On Sunday night (Nov. 27th) we began the season with an advent hymn sing with several lessons from advent hymns. It was a wonderful time of singing and thinking about the meaning of these familiar yet scripturally-rich Christmas Songs. I’m sure that you love Christmas songs (I do too!) and this year I have had that stanza from Joy to the World in my mind:


No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found


Isaac Watts, who wrote Joy to the World, had a right understanding of what Christ’s coming to earth would accomplish – removing the curse and allowing the blessings of God to come. Because of the sin of our first parents Adam and Eve all of creation has been effected and put under a curse. “For the creation was subjected to futility….and has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth” (Rom.8:21,22). Only Christ, chosen by God, could come and reverse the effects of that covenantal curse. That is exactly what He has done in his righteous life, sacrificial death, resurrection from the dead, and ascension into heaven. He became the curse for us so that we could receive all the blessings of God (2 Cor. 5:21).


If you remember in CS Lewis’ The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe the White Witch casts her spell on Narnia declaring that it will always be winter and never Christmas. But as Aslan comes and breaks the spell, the result is the snow and ice begins to melt and patches of green grass, green tree-branches, and flowers begin to appear. What a beautiful metaphor of life being brought to the earth through the arrival and presence of Christ. All of creation is blessed by the arrival of its Creator.


As you contemplate the advent of our Savior, may you think often of the good life – physically and spiritually – that the Lord has given you through Jesus Christ. All because He has reversed the curse and has come to make His blessings flow.


May the blessings of Christ flow this Christmas season - and always! God bless and Merry Christmas!