Uplook - November 22, 2025

Happy Saturday,

This has been a good week for our family.  During this week every year we celebrate three family birthdays.  It begins with the birth of our only son and finishes with the birth of our youngest daughter.  In the middle we celebrate the birth of our oldest daughter's only daughter (our granddaughter).   That is a lot of celebration for one week but I am reminded as we celebrate, the real miracle of birth.  It is not just a random combination of chemicals and elements gathered together by chance but instead a miraculous design by a Master Designer, the same one who designed the Universe.  

I am also reminded as we approach the holidays of the even greater miracle of birth which we call the Incarnation.  The Apostle John described it this way in John 1.  

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."  John 1:14.

The One who created the world, then entered the same world in human form.  He did not lose any of His divinity even while setting some of it aside to take on humanity.  The God who we serve chose to enter the world in the same manner every human after Adam and Eve entered the world.   It is from this miracle the miraculous miracles and teaching of Christ arose and culminated with the miracle of the crucifixion and resurrection.  None of those things happen without the Incarnation.  

So, celebrating birthdays this time of year is a good thing indeed ...both for our family and for all of us who rejoice in the miracle of Christ's birth at Christmas time.  

Housekeeping Notes:
Sunday Schedule - After morning service we will celebrate Thanksgiving with an all church dinner upstairs in the "Gathering Place".   We will have a short thanksgiving devotional upstairs after dinner and then ask those not in the choir to handle upstairs cleanup while choir members have an abbreviated practice in the sanctuary.  Following choir practice we will decorate the sanctuary for Christmas/Advent which begins the following Sunday.  

Blessings,
BB

William E. McKibben
Senior Pastor