What a Blessed Time

“Silent night, Holy night!

Son of God, love's pure light.
Radiant beams from Thy holy face,

with the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus Lord at Thy birth,

Jesus Lord at Thy birth.”

“Silent Night” by Josef Mohr

Germany, 1818
Sung here by Elvis Presley, 1957

John Leech's
"Ghost of Christmas Present"
from Charles Dickens'
A Christmas Carol
1843, 1st Edition

What a blessed time to be alive: to see Jesus at His birth, to hold Him, to know that you are witnessing the beginning of the salvation of the world.

What a blessed time to be alive: to see Jesus heal the sick, give the blind sight, make the lame walk, raise the dead, and turn water into wine, to see Him die and then rise from the dead victorious over Satan.

What a blessed time to be alive: to see Jesus in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, to receive the forgiveness of sins through that bread and wine, through water and the Word of God, to look forward with absolute certainty to heaven and the life of the world to come.

What a blessed time to be alive: to see Jesus return in glory with heavenly hosts and fire and trumpets, to witness the end of the salvation of the world.

Well, one out of four isn't bad, and we’ll all be alive one way or another to see that last one. In the meantime, rejoice for the entire presence of Jesus on earth, the one that has passed, the one that is present, and the one that is yet to come.

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins.”

Colossians 1:13-14