This week starts the season of Advent, the season of waiting for and anticipating the coming of Jesus which we will celebrate at Christmas. And for the kid in all of us, it begins the season to think about giving and getting gifts. It can sound unspiritual and worldly to talk about presents at Christmas. But isn’t that what we are celebrating? The joy in receiving the greatest gift ever, Jesus Himself. We are getting ready to celebrate this miracle of Christmas, but when we look at the whole of Scripture, that first miracle of that baby born on Christmas night was just the beginning of other miracles that would come. Because in that manger was not only the greatest gift the world has ever known, but also the greatest gift giver the world has ever known. Sometimes we don’t see it, because we stop at the manger; we stop at the cross. But Jesus is present with us every day in even more miraculous ways than those. So this season we are going to look ahead to all the miraculous ways that Jesus comes to us starting with the fact that He is Immanuel, God with us.
