Daily Advent Devotions from Church Street UMC
Wednesday, December 6
By Dona Bunch
The Miracle of Transformation
Read: Ezekiel 36:26 & 2 Corinthians 5:17
At this fall’s 50th anniversary meeting of the Holston Conference United Women in Faith, the newly elected General Secretary spoke of “transformation” in the Methodist Church and in the United Women in Faith organization.
The word caught my attention and stuck with me in the weeks following. While watching an interview with Jeff Bezos, I recalled that word as the billionaire creator of Amazon talked about his travel to the edge of space on his own rocket. Likewise, Elon Musk dreamed of space travel and formed his company, SpaceX, for that purpose. He orchestrated his own trip into space and offered the experience to others for $55 million dollars per person.
The recent tragic loss of several people in a small diving craft was another example, sadly tragic, of the willingness to take huge risks for a transformational experience in the unexplored depths of the sea.
Extraordinary experiences are the new “thing.” I suppose you could argue that an experience that amazing is well worth the extravagant price. Everyone who has participated in space travel has returned to describe it as “once-in-a-lifetime,” life altering, in other words, transformational.
Yet when Christians think of the most transformational experience in history, we think, not of a gleaming rocket trembling on a launch pad, but a tired man and women with a donkey, traveling across the dusty rocky roads toward the town of Bethlehem.
Mary and Joseph’s “voyage” to Bethlehem was more transformational than any in history. At the time, though, as they headed toward a run-down stable on a dark night, chances are they could hardly grasp the magnitude of their “trip of a lifetime.”
Yet they knew they were on a special mission, even if they couldn’t imagine how it would all turn out. A young girl and her husband, a long journey, a baby in a manger, hardly seemed miraculous on the surface. But it would later become obvious that nothing could compare to the transforming power of Jesus’ birth.
As we enter the Advent season, we celebrate the miracle that Jesus brought, the salvation he offered, and the triumph over death itself that he delivered to the world. And it was free of charge to us all.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, may we be transformed by your greatest gift to us, the miracle of Jesus on earth and the salvation his life and death gave to all of us. Amen.
