Day 10- The Messiah

                  There was a blessed Messiah born

    Messiah is an Aramaic word meaning "the anointed". Used as a title of an office, it denotes The King and Deliverer whose coming the Jews were eagerly expecting. The name accompanies hope. Hope in the promises made to Heavenly Father's children before the world began. Many have waited and are still waiting for him to come.

By Gabriele Burgess

 During these weeks of advent we wait and recreate that anticipation shared by so many believers. How will he change us? How will we make room for him in this precious mortal life we have been given. Come!

The Wexford Carol - Lyrics

Good people all, this Christmas time,

Consider well and bear in mind

What our good God for us has done

In sending his beloved son

With Mary holy we should pray,

To God with love this Christmas Day

In Bethlehem upon that morn,

There was a blessed Messiah born

The night before that happy tide

The noble Virgin and her guide

Were long time seeking up and down

To find a lodging in the town

But mark right well what came to pass

From every door repelled, alas

As was foretold, their refuge all

Was but a humble ox's stall

Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep

Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep

To whom God's angel did appear

Which put the shepherds in great fear

Arise and go, the angels said

To Bethlehem, be not afraid

For there you'll find, this happy morn

A princely babe, sweet Jesus, born

With thankful heart and joyful mind

The shepherds went the babe to find

And as God's angel had foretold

They did our Saviour Christ behold

Within a manger he was laid

And by his side a virgin maid

Attending on the Lord of Life

Who came on earth to end all strife

There were three wise men from afar

Directed by a glorious star

And on they wandered night and day

Until they came where Jesus lay

And when they came unto that place

Where our beloved Messiah lay

They humbly cast them at his feet

With gifts of gold and incense sweet.

           

Here are twenty-four names of Christ and twenty-four days until Christmas. Check back here to find the contents page of this series.

Day 9- Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring

Names of Christ- Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring

This 10th and last movement of the Bach cantata entitled "Heart and Voice and Deed and Life" was composed in 1716. The words written by a poet named Jahns came after. That Man should desire him is an amazing concept and that he would be our joy is a sublime idea. How many other things hold our thoughts and imagination? To wake each morning and have a thought for Him is my pursuit. 

I have noticed that the Holy Ghost does not wait for me to initiate the the thought of Jesus. The spirit draws me and it is my joy to follow. I don't want to leave the impression that I am too successful. Many mornings I wake with thoughts only of myself. However, the morning when He is my joy are the most nurturing. 

Jesu, joy of man's desiring,

Holy wisdom, love most bright;

Drawn by Thee, our soul's aspiring

Soar to uncreated light.

                

Here are twenty-four names of Christ and twenty-four days until Christmas. Check back here to find the contents page of this series.

Day 8- The Living Water

Names of Christ- The Living Water

Gurgling waters in drains, ditches overflowing onto streets, and lawns squishy due to standing rain are signs that we here, in the Northwest have water. Today's projected snow will soon be melting and running into the overwet grass. I live on an island and am surrounded by water. I know what it feels like when my plants are parched in the heat of summer, the four days of blazing heat a year. Ha! Ha! Can there be too much water?

I think of the Woman at the Well. She must have let her pail down a long, long way to bring up water in the desert of Samaria. No wonder she was interested in having water provided for her another way.

       Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

                                                                 John 4:10

   What is living water? It is the cool, refreshing blessing of feeling His love. It is knowing how his Atonement brings you life, physically and spiritually. It is opening the scriptures and being taught by revelation from the Holy Ghost. Living water edifies and plumps up the physical and spiritual cells in your body and mind. I can't survive without it.

                 

There are twenty-four names of Christ and twenty-four days until Christmas. Check back here to find the contents page of this series.

Day 7- The True Vine

                                         Names of Christ-The True Vine

 Imagine walking through a field of pumpkins at harvest time. There are vines everywhere and branches running higgily, piggily around the orange orbs. Where is the branch connected to the roots?  How can you know which pumpkin is still connected to the source?

   "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that beareth, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit."

John 15:1-5

We are the branches, Jesus Christ is the True Vine and our Heavenly Father the source. During an average day can we abide in him?  Can we stay fully connected to the branch that has deep roots? Or do we lay exposed like harvest pumpkins on the field having become severed at the stem?  

   "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 

   I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

             

There are twenty-four names of Christ and twenty-four days until Christmas. Check back here to find the contents page of this series.

Day 6- The Bread Of LIfe

Names of Christ- The Bread Of Life

     I make an artisanal bread with four simple ingredients, flour, water, salt and yeast. The 1/4 teaspoon of yeast works in the dough for 18 hours and it is enough to leaven the whole loaf. It lives within the other ingredients and offers life to that which would be inert without it's influence. So is Christ within us. Matt. 13:33

"I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that O give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

    Christ desires us to be nourished by his word, his blessings, ordinances, such as the sacrament, and by the covenants we make with him such as baptism. They are sustaining and to use vernacular current to our times, his influence is as sustainable now as it was in the wilderness with Moses.

             

                      

There are twenty-four names of Christ and twenty-four days until Christmas. Check back here to find the contents page of this series.

Day 5- The Light Of The World

        Names of Christ- The Light Of The World

At this time of year, when we hang twinkling lights, outside and inside, light is a comfort to us all. Light shows us the way. It makes the mysterious shadows more visible. It warms and cheers. We crave it in the winter and revel in it when summer comes. It is the perfect metaphor for Christ.

" Then spake Jesus again unto them saying, I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

John 8:12

His light is in very man, woman, and child. It is enlightenment, knowledge, and an uplifting, enabling, persevering influence that comes upon mankind because of Jesus Christ.

The Light of Christ fills the "immensity of space" and is the means by which Christ is able to be "in all things, and is through all things, and is round all things."

He has power to give light to the blind, both physically and spiritually. When healing the blind man he announced;

"As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

John 9:5

I have felt his light. Why, even as I made the decision to write about Him everyday, I felt light in my soul. Right now I am sitting in the dark of my living room with only the light from my laptop. His words are my light. Knowing him better 

brings me joy.

                    

There are twenty-four names of Christ and twenty-four days until Christmas. Check back here to find the contents page of this series.

Day 4- Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and King

 Jesus of Nazareth is a title used in the gospels somewhat derisively at first. In Mark 1: a unclean spirit cries from an possessed man. It is interesting that even an unclean spirit had to declare him as holy.

   "Let us alone, what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God."

     Nazareth was not an important town in Jesus' day. To be from this small, unimportant place gives a sense that he did not come to earth to be honored. He was simple and his birth was simple. His earthly parents, though having royal ancestry, were of no importance in Israel.  Nathanael, a friend of disciple Philip remarked, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" 

It was foretold by Isaiah that a great light would be seen by people who walk in darkness in the land of Zebulun. That land of Zebulun in the time when Jesus lived was Nazareth.

" The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

Isaiah 9:2

In the end, Pilate would write the words "JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS as a title on his cross. It was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin so anyone could read it and understand. Pilate meant to demean him but he answered to this title when in John 18:5 authorities came looking for him.

"Jesus said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he." 

Jesus of Nazareth,

Savior, and King.

Triumphant over death, life thou didst bring.

              

There are twenty-four names of Christ and twenty-four days until Christmas. Check back here to find the contents page of this series.