The God of the Bible is an amazing God. He created a beautiful universe and crafted a gorgeous earth with a glorious environment of greenery and animals, and then placed us human beings on it to enjoy ourselves and take care of His earth. He meant for us to be His friends, worshiping Him and tending the earth. There was no putrefaction, no foul smells, no death. We were to live forever.

Then out of the blue came the tempter, the enemy of God and of human beings and of all that is good, Lucifer. He tempted Adam and Eve and tricked them into abandoning God to forge their own course in life independent of God. But life was designed to function properly only with God at the center, no other way, never.

It’s like abandoning manufacturer’s instructions for operating a given machine thinking that one has found a shortcut. That machine might work properly for a time, but eventually it will break down and be ruined. And the greater weirdness would be for the user, when the machine so breaks down, to still refuse to consult and follow manufacturer’s instructions, and instead stubbornly invent other actions contrary to the manufacturer’s instructions, and yet expect the machine to function as supposed to, and wonder why it is not doing what it’s supposed to do. Daaa. And that exactly is what we did to God we human beings.

And the marvelous thing is this. The God of the universe decided to become a human being like us so that He would pay the penalty for our rebellion against Him. He became a human baby and grew into a full-fledged man. He lived on this planet, ate food and drank water like us. He saw the damage we have inflicted on His earth.

The Christmas season reminds us of this unfathomable and indefatigable love of God that constrained Him to do the unthinkable, become a human being to bear the punishment of His errant intelligent beings. This great undertaking of God must never get lost to us in all our busyness.

May this Christmas season remind us of that great love of God and motivate us to inculcate kingdom values in ourselves. May we find time to serve the poor and the underprivilege as well as one another. “He rules the world with truth and grace,” so says the Christmas carol. God calls us His worshippers to emulate Him and relate with one another with truth and grace. Let us do it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS,

The Rev. Edward Kironde, Interim Rector