eAdventWithMatthewDec23 - Home by another way

   You wouldn't need to be warned in a dream not to revisit nasty king Herod!  But God lovingly warns them, and "they departed by another way" (Matthew 2:12).  They took a different road - but do you wonder if Matthew is mapping out what life is like once we've met Jesus?  Nothing is the same; you don't plod along the same old path.  You find yourself going another way.

   T.S. Eliot ended his poem imagining the thoughts of the magi:  "We returned to our places... but no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods."  Jesus does not make my life more comfortable; Jesus doesn't help me fit in and succeed.  Someone said "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."  We are no longer at ease in a world not committed to Jesus; we notice false gods all around.  Nothing is the same; nothing comes easy.  A strange, unfamiliar road is now our path - but the road is going somewhere.

   God of truth, the old road leads to death and hollowness; put me on a new path that leads to You and life.

   ...And here endeth the Advent email series...  We will take a break next week, and after that a new series, eFollowingJesus, will begin - as we walk through Matthew and his account of the life of Jesus and what it means for us.  Have a blessed Christmas! and thank you for being a reader and co-traveller on this journey!

James

james@mpumc.org