Getting Ready for Christmas

With Thanksgiving over and December beginning tomorrow it is time to start thinking about Christmas. This year I am reading beginning December by reading the Prophets, I started Isaiah this morning. I usually read the beginnings of the Gospels during December, which I will still do, but I think it’s interesting to begin the Christmas season with a different perspective. By that I mean that a lot of the aspects of Jesus’ life were predicted hundreds of years before He was born. Also you get a hint of the plans God has in store for Israel, plans for salvation and grace, one of my favorite images comes from the first chapter verse 18 “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” That, I feel, is one of the best pictures of what God’s forgiveness is like and what Jesus came down here to do. Colors like “scarlet” and “crimson” seem bright, loud, they stand out for all to see, yet God can wash those sins away and give us a clean slate. Coming from New England I know what a fresh snow looks like, and what it looks like after a week of getting dirtied; imagine if we could clean the snow, make it pure again, as if all those things that unpurified it never happened. It’s the same with forgiveness, God washes us clean so we are pure, as if it never happened.