Preparing for the Birth of the King!
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” (Matt: 2:2-1)
Brothers and sisters in Christ and fellow pilgrims,
When we are anticipating coming before a King, a certain amount of serious preparation is always involved, as I’m sure the wise men did before starting their voyage of discovery. How much more then is spiritual preparation involved when are anticipating attending to the birth of our Spiritual King – the creator and lover of our souls. However, we cannot fully prepare unless our hearts really desire to understand the full meaning of His Birth, which we celebrate each Christmas Day.
We need to prepare our hearts in order to fully appreciate the meaning of Christmas for unless we prepare we will miss the deeper spiritual meaning and awareness behind this event and prevent us from entering into the full spirit and blessings of Advent and its implications for our lives.
The first thing that is needed is that during this season our lives need to be motivated to find and experience the real presence of Jesus. in our hearts. It is only by experiencing His presence and the awareness of who Jesus is that we can come to truly understand the meaning of Christmas. Our preparation, therefore, must be one of the heart, a preparation that can only be realized through the power of the Holy Spirit enlightening us with His Word.
We need this preparation because to understand Christmas we must understand who Jesus really is – God Incarnate – and, that at His Birth as man, God out of His Divine Love for us, His creatures, surrendered His divine prerogatives and submitted Himself to become one of us, and not just one of us as an adult but as a helpless and totally dependent baby. A baby wrapped on swaddling clothes, resembling strips of cloth used for burial, prefiguring his destiny.
He became one of us not, for His pleasure but to die for our sins as man so that we might be restored to Him as His Children – brothers and sisters to the divine child that was born to us to bring us to New Life. If we cannot come to the full awareness of the awesomeness of this event then it is doubtful that we can come to a full awareness of what Christmas really means. That is why, like the Wise Men of old, we need to prepare…to seek him … to come before Him… and to worship Him.
If, we like the Wise Men, are truly seeking Him, to know who he is and to Know Him personally, then His Word must be in our hearts so that His Guiding Star may be revealed to us by the Holy Spirit – for it is the star of revelation of His Word that will guide us to His Presence so that, through the Holy Spirit, we can really come to know Him both as God and as Man. It is thus that we prepare our souls to be the manger where Jesus can be laid. For that is also why He came, not only to be our rock and our shelter, but to be in us, to abide in us so that we might abide in Him.
Let us then enter into this preparation of our hearts by committing ourselves to Him and Him alone, by repenting of our sins, reconciling ourselves to our neighbor and by opening our hearts to His Presence within us to be Our Savior and Our Lord!
Praised be His Name Forever! Amen and Amen!
Bartimaeus
(© B.R.Timeo and Bartimaeus’ Quiet Place, [2008-2010])
Recommended Links Regarding This Topic
God’s Call to Personal Intimacy
Opening the Door to Jesus and His Love
Document Download: “ Awakening to the Love of the Father”(v.6a,8×11)
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