Advent Day 7 – The Love of God

---

One of the remarkable things about the Christmas story, which folds into the Easter story, is how my the Father loved us.

How much Jesus loved us that he would leave His home with the father and subject him to all of the grief, and strife, and pain of being fully human, with all of the messy things that entails.

Not only that, but he put himself into humanity knowing that in the end he would be rejected, beaten, tortured, and ultimately killed for us.

Love came down to a manger. That manger lead to a cross.

Because he loved us.

He loves us still.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

---

About the Candy Cane.

In Indiana, a candy maker wanted to make a candy that could be a reminder of Jesus Christ, so he made the Christmas candy cane. He started off with a stick of pure white hard candy. The white color symbolized the virgin birth and the sinless nature of Jesus, and the hard candy symbolized the solid rock which was the foundation of the church, and firmness of the promises of God.

The candy maker made the candy in the form of a J, which represented the name of Jesus and the staff of the Good Shepherds. He then stained it with three stripes which showed the scourging Jesus received, and symbolized the blood shed by Christ on the cross. When you break the cane, it reminds us that Jesus’ body was broken for us. [Spangler Candy]

We cannot let this day pass without nothing that eighty years ago today, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy Air Service launched an attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This drew us into World War II as we declared our formal entry the following day. American men and women joined our Allies on both the European and Pacific front.

Let us pray that we learn from our history.

We continue our journey to the manger.