Hey, friends! To be honest with you, this Advent has been weighed down with a lot of sickness in my family. We got the Christmas lights up right after Thanksgiving, and then we got hit with an arctic blast of very cold weather here (in my opinion. I know all of you in Wisconsin just roll your eyes at us coastal Carolinians when it comes to cold.) and WHAMMO, everyone was laid low with illness and grouchiness (or maybe that's just me.). The Christmas tree and decorations were set up late and the Advent calendar, well, it is sadly devoid of chocolate even now. So, if your Advent feels "off" this year, or your life is a bit messy, or if your family is kind of chaotic, welcome. We're going to learn today how normal all of that is and how it's the perfect place for Jesus to come right on in.
"So many people think they have to have this perfect family in order to have a perfect Christmas. No! Jesus is the family we need to have the perfect Christmas!" ~ Lisa
If your family doesn't look like you expected it to look or feel like you hoped it would feel, it's ok. We don't have to be all cleaned up to come to Jesus. In fact, we can't. Jesus enters into our stories whether or not they look like the cover of Magnolia Magazine.
"Jesus makes the scandalous miraculous." ~ Lisa
Lisa shares with us this week about four wild and racy stories, of women no less, who Matthew highlights in Jesus' family tree. It just doesn't get more steamy than the life stories of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. That's good news for us!
Think about it. Are there parts of your lineage, your history, your present, or whatever else that you feel so ashamed about that you can't even tell anyone. What are we hiding? What are we scandalized about? Jesus not only doesn't expect perfect, His own family tree is as spicy as it gets!
Your story and my story aren't too blackened for us to be precious to Jesus Christ. Matthew's genealogy of Jesus, as Lisa shows us, tears down the perfection wall. You don't have to be perfect to get close to God Himself. He loves His kids even when they have black sheep stories. He's crazy about the black sheep!
"It's not just Christmas that's redemptive. The entire Story (of the Bible) is a Christmas story." ~ Lisa
Let's step into this week prepared to be awed by how much Jesus loves us, welcomes us, and embraces us! Amen?
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