Just Sit Right Back and You'll Hear a Tale

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Just Sit Right Back and You'll Hear a Tale - The Next Step
Posted by Debbie Piper - Associate Minister, Coaching & Equipping on Dec 3, 2008, 16:19

Just Sit Right Back and You�ll Hear a Tale � The Next Step

This is the Next Step- It is designed to allow you to take the celebration worship experience at CCC and make some additional discoveries for your adventure of faith.

You can use this study in a variety of ways, read it as a devotional, print it out and fill in your answers on the page, keep a journal and allow the questions to spark additional thought and perhaps additional study. Perhaps this study will create in your head and heart even more questions...jot down what you are thinking about...ask your questions, e-mail them to us at cccreach@aol.com and thanks for being willing to take this study to the Next Step!

Based on Luke 2:14

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

�Just sit right back and you�ll hear a tale��

Okay, take a moment and finish humming the theme song from Gilligan�s Island before we get started. Funny, isn�t it, how familiar that song is for those of us who watched the TV series?

Does the Christmas story fall into the same category for you, so familiar that it brings a smile to your face and you walk around humming it, even though you may have forgotten the words? Have you heard it so many times that the words of Luke 2 seem like a good friend�familiar, expected, welcome, maybe even a little too familiar?

Maybe you even start to zone out when you hear the beginning of the story, just listening for your favorite part and perking up again when you know the end is coming.

Tale. The word itself conjures up thoughts of fairy tales, make believe, fantasy, children�s stories. When stories, even true stories, become overly familiar, we tend to go on auto-pilot in reading or hearing them. This story, this tale, over 2000 years old, is no fairy tale. It is amazing, supernatural, unexpected, yet predicted and documented in history.

Maybe we�ve just heard the story too many times. Could it be that we�ve allowed the familiar words to lull us to sleep so that we miss the power and significance of the tale of Jesus� birth?

Take a moment to talk to God, asking Him to open your eyes and ears to the story of Jesus� birth, then read through the following excerpt from Luke 2�

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

What stands out to you as read the story about Jesus� birth?

The simplicity of the first Christmas belied the wonder of what God was doing at that moment in history. Bethlehem was filled with the hustle and bustle of crowds, of frantic, travel-weary, crowds finding a place to spend the night. In the midst of it all, a baby was born, new life came into the world. In that everyday occurrence, the sacred intersected the ordinary.

Stop.

Did you catch it? The wonder? The awe? The mystery? The sacred? The divine moment?

At that moment, angels worshiped�