Day 6 and 7 - Going Backwards

Sunday Marty, pastor of my new home church, threw out the idea that in order to go forward be first had to go backwards. It is logical to try to gain perspective in order to make conceptual sense of what is before us. In other words, it would make no sense to explain what an oak leaf is when a man has never seen a tree and then telling him to go out into the world and find one.

This was also true for the Jews and Magi. For many years they looked backwards, reading and studying many prophecies and writings that explained what signs to look for that would herald in the Messiah. . . the King of Jews. For the Jews there where hundreds of prophecies of the Messiah. His lineage, his humble birth, . . . . . thousands of angels sing in the sky one night. All signs of the coming Emmanuel. The Magi were not Jews, instead they looked to the skies for the ways stars aligned and the mathematics of the science that would indicate the moments of His coming. Interesting how the sign were of both faith and science.

Looking in the metaphoric rearview mirror to prepare for Christmas has been captivating to be honest. If I felt incline, which I don't at the moment, I could discuss the unbelievable chain of events that occurred in the starry horizons of Earth that lead to the Star of Bethlehem being in the sky. But instead looking backwards got me thinking about what would it look like to think backwards before the days of Jesus' birth.

It is strange thought to be honest. Trying to think through the eyes of hope while looking for the beauty of life without Jesus as a part of the process is staggeringly hard. Jesus colored the world with hope the moment he was born. Yet looking backwards to why He came into our world to make things right. . . what did Jesus look back on . . . . perhaps it was looking back to what God intended to the world to be before there was sin. That Jesus' rearview mirror thought revolved around the Dream of God (the Kingdom of God) as he grew from a baby into the man. For what he learned from was how to go forward and make things right for us again. That perfection could and will come again. So what does that look like.

Perhaps like this.

I promise very few videos for here on out.