Christmas.

This month, I've been following a Christmas bible plan. It's been awesome. I've been directed to Isaiah (which I still find really difficult to spell) quite a bit, and have discovered all these incredible Old Testament prophecies that point straight to Jesus. My mind has been well and truly BLOWN.

Today, I was told to dive back into the gospels, with a passage from Luke. For anyone who doesn't know the story of John the Baptist's birth, go look it up now! It's found in Luke 1, and is another one of those mind-blowers. The Bible is well and truly packed with them. The passage I read today tells of the priest Zechariah (again, tricky spelling) prophesying over his newborn son John. 

"And you, my little son,
      will be called the prophet of the Most High,
      because you will prepare the way for the Lord.
    You will tell his people how to find salvation
      through forgiveness of their sins.
    Because of God’s tender mercy,
      the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
    to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
      and to guide us to the path of peace.”    - Luke 1:76-79

Now I've read this passage before, quite a few times I think, but I'm not sure how I just skipped over it. "Because of God's tender mercy" <- How amazing is that? Because of God's tender mercy, he sent us Jesus. Not just his mercy, but his tender mercy. He is loving, he is kind, he is our Father. 

For me this was a reminder, that Christmas is about God having tender mercy on us, sending us Jesus. He freed us from sin, from judgement, he gave us an escape to something glorious. God was so lovingly merciful that he intervened, he came down to Earth in his own creation (again, MIND BLOWN) so that he could be reconciled to us. That's our cause for celebration, the reason for the season. The morning light from heaven has broken upon us!

And that's so stupidly exciting, I had to write about it, end of. I've also been watching The Nativity on the BBC, it's still on iPlayer, and if you haven't seen it you need to! I've cried twice already and I still have the final episode left. But then, after all, it is the greatest, most important, most beautiful story ever told.

I hope you have an amazing Christmas.

p.s. Jesus really loves you