PARSON
	TO	Bill Webb, Pastor E-mail the Pastor
PERSON

Dear Friends,

On looking through a resource of thoughts about Christmas, I found several that I thought might be of interest.  First, we often think that the only miracle that occurred on that first Christmas was in the birth of a Savior but consider the following:

In his book, Science Speaks, Peter Stoner applies the modern science of probablity to just eight prophecies regarding Christ.  He says, "The Chance that any man might have...fulfilled all eight prophecies in one in 10 to the 17th.  That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (one hundred quadrillion).

Stoner concludes, "Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing those eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man...providing they wrote them in their own wisdom" (Source unknown)*

Or you might want to think of the following when you consider how expensive Christmas is getting to be:

It cost Mary and Joseph the comforts of home during a long period of exile in Egypt to protect the little babe.  It cost mothers, in and around Bethlehem, the massacre of their babies by the cruel order of Herod.  It cost the shepherds the complacency of their shepherd's life, with the call to the manger and to tell the the good news.   It cost the wise men a long journey and expensive gifts and changed lives.   It cost the early Apostles and the early church persecution and sometimes death.   It cost missionaries of Christ untold suffering and privation to spread the Good News.  It cost Christian martyrs in all ages their lives for Christ's sake. More than all this, it cost God the Father His own Son---He sent Him to earth to save men.  It cost Jesus a life of sacrifice and service, and a death cruel and unmatched in history. (Source unknonwn)*

Have you seen the sign on Grand Aveneue set up by one of the churches thas says "Keep Jesus in Christmas"?  Consider:

Two women who were having lunch in an elegant hotel were approached by a mutual friend who asked the occasion of the meal.  One lady replied, "We are celebrating the birth of my baby boy."
"But where is he?" inquired the friend.
"Oh," said the mother, "You didn't think I'd bring him did you?"

What a picture of the way the world treats Jesus at Christmas, (Source unknown)*

Christmas is the rarest of expensive gifts.  Let us not forget the Giver.

*Galaxie Software, 2002; 2002, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations.  Biblecal Studies Press.

See you Sunday!!!