Merry Christmas!

Please take just a minute to watch a video made for today, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:

“Watch: Church Shares Beautiful Christmas Video, ‘He Was Born for You'”

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Here’s an interesting bit of history that’s relevant to this very day:

“How Joseph Smith Spent His Last Christmas”

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I share with you, as a variant of the story of Christmas, the New International Version rendering of John 1:1-14.  I choose this passage, and a possibly unfamiliar translation of it, in an effort to see the story of the birth of Christ from a slightly different angle than the familiar Lukan narrative:

1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

I think it’s important that we not make Christmas merely about the birth of a little baby.  Little babies are born every day.  Lots of them.  But this wasn’t merely a tiny infant.  This was (and is) the Lord of the Universe, the King of Kings, who voluntarily lay his glory by.

Posted from Alexandria, Egypt