Streams of Mercy

I read this passage of Dr. Peter Marshall’s sermon “Let’s Keep Christmas” each year and this portion speaks to my heart this Christmas season.

“……and then you will remember what Christmas means – the beginning of Christianity …the Second Chance for the world…the hope for peace…and the only way. The promise that the angels sang is the most wonderful music the world has ever heard: ‘Peace on earth and good will toward men.’ It was not a pronouncement upon the state of the world then. Nor is it a reading of the international barometer of the present time … but it is a promise – God’s promise – of what one day will come to pass.

The years that are gone are graveyards in which all the persuasions of men have crumbled into dust. If history has any voice, it is to say that all these ways of men lead nowhere. There remains one way – The Way – untried, untested, unexplored fully … the way of Him who was born a Babe in Bethlehem.

In a world that seems not only to be changing, but even to be dissolving, there are some tens of millions of us who want Christmas to be the same …with the same old greeting ‘Merry Christmas’ and no other. We long for the abiding love among men of good will which the season brings…believing in this ancient miracle of Christmas with its softening, sweetening influence to tug at our heart strings once again.

We want to hold on to the old customs and traditions because they strengthen our family ties, bind us to our friends, and make us one with all mankind, for whom the Child was born, and bring us back again to the God who gave His only begotten Son, that ‘whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ So, we will not ‘spend’ Christmas …nor ‘observe’ Christmas. We will ‘keep’ Christmas – keep it as it is …in all the loveliness of its ancient traditions. May we keep it in our hearts, that we may be kept in its hope.”

Giving thanks for Peter Marshall’s life and ministry, praying his words will reach through the years to touch our hearts this Christmas.

Elizabeth