Oh Come All Ye Faithful
John 6:35 I am the bread that gives life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry. No one who believes in me will ever be thirsty.
I am the bread that gives life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry. No one who believes in me will ever be thirsty.
“O Come All Ye Faithful” is one of those great, great Christmas carols that we love to sing this time of year. Joyful and triumphant. And yet, there are so many heading towards Christmas that are anything but joyful and triumphant.
Sometime in the mid seventeen hundreds, John Francis Wade wrote these words:
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels;
O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.
It’s a joyful song, but one that so many people sing when they light their candles at “Carols by Candlelight” festivals around the world without any real sense of the meaning or the joy.
Somehow we’ve reduced this beautiful song, these wondrous lyrics, to merely a component of our Christmas ritual. And then, when the people blow out their candles and go home, they leave just as they came … empty.
Centuries before Jesus was born, God let it be known through the Prophet Micah that He would be born in Bethlehem.
Micah 5:2 But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, are the smallest town in Judah. Your family is almost too small to count, but the “Ruler of Israel” will come from you to rule for me. His beginnings are from ancient times, from long, long ago.
That word “Bethlehem” literally means “the house of bread” – uncanny when you think about it, because later Jesus would say:
John 6:35 I am the bread that gives life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry. No one who believes in me will ever be thirsty.
He still is. We don’t have to leave Christmas empty. He came that we might be filled. I am the bread of life. Jesus.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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