A HOOKER AND AN ADULTRESS LEAD THE WAY TO CHRISTMAS

I have a vision for things that I create.  They show up in my head in broad strokes and as I begin to unleash the beginning of the plan, I see the rest of it.  I love to take something in rough shape and make it better.  A room, a house, landscaping, even people.  There are things in my house that are new.  Alongside many of those new things are other things that are redone or old.  They have separate value and they have combined value.  That combined value is the sum of them together.  The beauty of old, remade, recreated next to new and unmarred creates a purposed style.  Both types of things were chosen.  God trumps me most definitely in His ability and purposed style of using old, tattered and refurbished with new and pure.  The whole story of God is just that.  A story of extreme makeovers interwoven with clean and pure.  Look at the lineage of Christ.  Remember this is God.  He is the creator of all living, breathing, created things in the universe.  He is the creator of order, laws of nature, and me.  He made everything out of nothing - new.  Yet, He has a love affair with weathered and marred things as well.  He loves to make all things new again.  In the Bible, the book Matthew, it sets the stage for the pedigree of Jesus.  His papers in essence.   In what you think should be a clean-as-a-whistle lineage you find 4 women's names.  Their backgrounds not new.  Not shiny.  One was a former prostitute - Rahab.  One had an affair with a king - the result Solomon listed in the genealogy of Christ (Bathsheba).  One posed as a prostitute to seduce to Judah - Tamar.  One slept at the feet of Boaz trying to get his attention - Ruth, the Moabite.  In the  mix of these four women God introduce the tainted along with a thread of Gentiles into the pure, clean Jewish lineage of Christ.  I love that!   In that lineage is a picture of grace, love and redemption.  No matter our background.  No matter our past.  Or our choices, God says we are made new again through Christ.  We are cleaned to be able to hold the holiness of God through Jesus.  That's what the lineage of Christ shows me.  That's what Christmas is all about.  It is the living portrait of the genealogy of Christ portrayed.  It is God's gift to a marred world.  Simply stated, Jesus can make all things pure and new again.  All of us included.  That is why Jesus was born.  Merry Christmas.