Thursday, December 27, 2012

3rd Day of Christmas


Happy Third Day of Christmas!  Instead of turtle doves or French hens, we got 9 inches of snow and lots of wind.  It was too miserable yesterday morning to go for my walk.  Here's a picture that I took on today's walk.  There were still times that the wind was so fierce that I walked backwards into it.
I started meditating today on Sunday's Gospel, Luke 2: 41-52.  Family life at the time of Jesus was so different from now that I wasn't finding much to pray about in the behavior of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. The last verse is the one that I ended up spending time on, both for research and for prayer: "Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man." 
I looked at eleven English translations, plus the original Greek.  Phillips' sense translation is helpful: "As Jesus continued to grow in body and mind, he grew also in the love of God and of those who knew him."  That the Son of God needed to grow and change can encourage us.  God couldn't possibly love us more than God loved us when we came into existence.  I guess we can grow, however, in God's estimation of us and and the way we go about our lives.  Hopefully we can grow in the estimation of those who know us and in our ability to accept love from them.  Committing ourselves to continued growth with the help of Jesus will enrich our relationships with our family.

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