Jesse Tree (December 1)

I've included a Children's Version Here for the littlest ones.  For you, though, may this entrance into the story help sink you deep into the past, and wash over you the word of God from which bursts forth hope amidst the desperate void of being that is being without him.  Wait for him.  He is coming!

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Day 1:  Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:3)

[Note:  Changed symbol to earth]

Who can count the multitude, stretching around the whole earth and across all time, for whom this season has awakened anticipation just as it does in us now?   The revelation of Christmas is an old old story.  It has long been told.  It’s a story that many believe began with the birth of hope in a small helpless child, the Son of God, born to save the world.  But this miracle child was the answer to a question posed long before – a question posed for thousands of years... but already we’re getting ahead of ourselves, for in the beginning there was no question.  

The beginning. Here commenced the account of the Christmas story...  

In the beginning...

In the beginning we were not... but One was.  One True God.  Father, Son, Holy Spirit – holy trinity bound in perfect unity.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life and that life was the light of all mankind. 

In the beginning was Jesus.  But what of us?  What of earth?   

Nothing.  There was nothingness, emptiness, like life before the coming of our Savior.  Then, out of the darkness came his voice, an echo in the emptiness.  Out of the darkness, out of the nothing, he brought forth something! 

From his mouth he called out beautiful boundaries.  Separation that could sustain life:  universe, sky, water, land with food on it.  From the formlessness and emptiness he formed and he filled:  lights, birds, fish, animals, and people to "image" him – male and female.  He breathed in life.  Called out purpose.  Be fruitful!  Increase in number!  Fill the earth!  Keep the boundaries of creation – for it declares I AM – it sings of my nature:  Separate.  Good.  Holy.  True love kept pure by the just boundaries called out by his word - Truth.

This is the story.  The first story.  The only story.  This is where His story became our story:  The commanding word of his mouth made light, land, living creatures.  Then Father, Son and Spirit gathered together to imagine us, and then he knelt down, and breathed his love and life into us!  

We were made by love.  We were made in the Image of God to reveal his love - to be an echo of Him through space and time.  

Questions to Inspire Family Discussion: 

What did God create to fill the night sky and the day? 

How is light a blessing?

What did God create to fill the water and the sky?

How are birds and fish a blessing?

What did God create to fill the land?

How are animals a blessing?

What did God command his people to do?

Why did he make boys and girls?

How do marriage and family help us understand what God is like?
What does it mean to be an image of God?

What are some ways that people are like God?

What does it mean to protect God’s creation (rule over it)?

Learn together:

Was questions arose for you as you read this story?  
Is there some aspect of God's creation that you feel drawn to explore? 
 

Pray together:

Lord God, cause us to see it everywhere today, that everything you made is very good because Love is at the heart of everything you made.  Help us to honor the way you created and separated all that you have made so that we will be very good like you created us to be.

Almighty and everlasting God, You made the universe with all its marvelous order, its atoms, worlds, and galaxies, and the infinite complexity of living creatures: Grant that, as we probe the mysteries of Your creation, we may come to know You more truly, and more surely fulfill our role in Your eternal purpose; in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

  

 Sing:

This Is My Father’s World (youtube)

For the Beauty of theEarth (youtube)

 

Share the Good News with Others:     

Tell someone in your life how you see the Image of God reflected in them.