Saved and sent
Saved and sent
24 December 2018
Photo: Hello I'm Nik
As a young child growing up in a northern Canada town, the daily walk to the local post office to retrieve the mail was an exciting event.
Bundled up in hat and scarf against the wind, wearing snowsuit pants and winter boots to trudge through the ice and snow, we would set off.
The walk to the post office in December featured an added element of excitement.
The reason? It usually involved collecting gifts and cards that had arrived for Christmas.
There was a sense of anticipation with each step through the snow; anticipation that someone either close to home, or often from far across the country had sent something to us.
December continues to bring a sense of anticipation today.
Into the world that first Christmas, God sent his Son, born of the
To a people who were waiting and watching for God to send a Messiah, the anticipating was over. He had sent the perfect gift for everyone. Christmas would not have happened except for the choice made by God to “send”.
There would have been no Christmas card at the post office unless someone had taken the time and made the effort to send it. It all began with the sending.
God sent because he loved: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall have everlasting life” (John 3:16). The “sending” of Christmas continues. Jesus gave a gift to the world when he told his disciples that, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:21).
The One who was sent now sends. Salvationists wear on their uniforms two
We are well reminded of Jesus’ words to his followers that we are also a “Saved and Sent” people. It is only as we choose to accept the position of being a “sent people” that we can live, love and fight alongside others sharing the love of Jesus wherever there
This Christmas season, let us celebrate that God has sent his son Jesus and live lives that celebrate that Jesus has chosen to “send” us as the Father sent him.
Let December be filled with the anticipation of being sent, for as we are sent then, as Howard Thurman, writes:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among people, To make music in the heart.
Commissioner Floyd Tidd is Territorial Commander of The Salvation Army Australia Territory.
Comments
A fine message from Commissioners Tidd, but as much as I might agree with these words, I'd much more choose to focus all of my attention on God's love, not His sending. It was His love for all the world that left God with no other choice but to send His Son Jesus, all other methods to redeem humanity had failed, and Jesus knew why He came. It was a sent gift, yes, but it was sent with purpose...and with love.
Love is the real message of Christmas. The two "S's" should be "Saved to Share" God's love the whosoever, and as clearly and divinely expressed in God's gift of His only Son, Jesus.