Merry Christmas! Even in our most weary moments, we know we have a Father who loves us with an everlasting kind of love.
Merry Christmas! Even in our most weary moments, we know we have a Father who loves us with an everlasting kind of love.
My dearest child,
I cannot tell you how meaningful it is to me that you are celebrating this Christmas in your and my home away from Home. Your Brother Jesus sends his greetings and he wanted me to tell you that he can’t wait for you to see the place he’s preparing for you when you come home. The amount of times he has excitedly spoken about all the blueprints and amenities he’s crafted is a number only I know! Such conversations with Him transport my memory to the beginning before the beginning, in a place far beyond the realm of time when another conversation between him and me took place.
Your Brother and I spoke within my own heart, a discourse unknown to angels and even to you my dear child. As we spoke in tongues of transparency and listened with love, there was one topic that kept coming up: you. The joy of walking with you, the joy of taking in the sights of beauty, the joy of hiking through the cool mist of mountains, and the joy of feeling the spray of waterfalls, the joy of sharing conversations with you, laughing and rejoicing simply due to being in the mere presence of one another.
My child, consider the wonder that your Brother, who is the Word, is at one with me in heart and will and thought. And graciously, through my Son I communicate with my children. I allow you on the outside to hear the inside and everything is enlightened. True it is, that the Word is the Light. The Light is the Life, and that Life burst forth. Can you picture the sight of the sun flaming into being, or the moon serenely slipping into the sky? Can your mind’s ear perceive the rumble as the first elephant stomped in delight? As marvelous as those experiences were, nothing compares to when I saw your great times “a number only I know” grandparents Adam and Eve the first time.
I can still sense the airy particles of dust as I visualized your distant grandfather, Adam. When life enveloped him and I heard the stream of oxygen fill his lungs, I will never forget the look in his eyes. His smile warmed my heart. His face communicated two words: “I’m home.” My child, I cannot begin to tell you about the joy that danced in my heart as I crafted your distant grandfather’s rib into my grand finale, my final masterpiece, your distant grandmother, Eve. I still remember her smile, as she gripped my arm. There we were, trees bending their shady branches, lions roaring in delight, giraffes craning their necks for the tiniest of peeks, all to see the beginning of family. Your grandfather’s tears of joy, your grandmother’s beaming contentment, this was light and life.
However, you know, my dearest child, that such a world has since gone missing. Before long, I saw a nothingness, my crown and joy now estranged by a new insidious innovation. A tragedy you know as “darkness.” I remember walking in our garden and feeling estranged from my family. I felt like they were resisting me and my light. My Word spoke forth, longing for them to run into my arms again, but instead they hid in the shadows of darkness.
On that day, your Brother and I watched our most dearly loved companions treat us as outsiders. A foreign reality emerged that we never wanted, you know it as “sin.” But just like in the beginning before the beginning, your Brother and I couldn’t stop talking about you. We longed to walk with you again, and for you to be home. My child, we knew the perfect rescue mission.
The Word would be unleashed. The Light that commenced time, would now bring about the time for your homecoming. Your brother spoke through heroes like Moses and Elijah, through bold witnesses like John and Mary, through songs sung by Miriam and David, he even made a donkey’s day by speaking through him too! Your Brother cried out to all your siblings, “Come back to me! Live in my light! Recognize me again!” But, my child, many walked away from him, some even wanted to silence him. My heart broke for my children, and my arms carried the weight of emptiness. I wanted to be in your presence again. There was only one way to accomplish that once and for all.
Your Brother, the Word, the Light, the Life, knew he needed to be known by another name. The Word needed to not only be heard, but seen. The Light needed to walk in the shadows of the sun. The Life needed to lay down his own. My dear child, you know his name, how even when it’s said in a whisper, grace sweeps in with gale force. The time had come for the Word to come on his own, through his own mouth, through his own face.
My dear child, I thought of you every moment your Brother walked among your own. How I beamed with pride as he embraced more and more of your relatives, my arms feeling full again in the embrace of my dearly loved children. But even as he walked, touched, healed, and spoke, my presence still could not fully return. How I lamented the disconnect between us, my hug left unreturned.
But on a day you call Good, you heard your Brother speak light into the darkness, the shout of “It is finished.” My dearly loved humanity whose cause was once dark and dead; now was consumed by light once more! A new creation burst into life! This light hidden in the shadow of the cross accomplished what you thought once to be impossible!
Finally, my child, my arms were no longer hugging air. My hands no longer grasping at a vain hope. My child you would become. Your baptism day would soon arrive! Your Brother and I never fail to celebrate that day each year, it’s already marked on our 2023 calendar! How I love that I can call you, “son,” and “daughter!” Have you ever wondered why your Brother, the Word, made sure that you would have thousands of letters from me? He did just that so you would never forget the joy it is for me to be your Father. I love when you read my letters over and over. I am filled with an inexpressible joy when you hear my voice and see my presence again and again! How the Holy Spirit loves visiting you each day through those series of letters, the ones you call simply “the Word.”
My dearest child, I have so much more that I could tell you, but I leave you with this for now. You are mine. You are family. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Your seat at the manger scene will always be reserved for you. I hope you always remember the conversation your Brother and I had about you before the beginning had a beginning. I love you and I am always beside you. Merry Christmas, my child. It is so good to be at Home with you. Enjoy gathering with your family, both by blood and by faith. See your Brother’s face, feel once again his tiny hands reaching into yours. Remember he is your Light, and that he wants nothing more than to offer you life, hope, and joy until he finally gets to show you that place he can’t stop telling me about.
I love you with an everlasting love,
Your Heavenly Father