December '25

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The 2026 Calendar is now available! 
Click here to learn more!


Let's do something different this month: let's start with the song this painting is based on.  If you can, take a deep breath and press play.  Focus on the words.  What do they say?  What do you think they mean?



Historians call it the "Intertestamental period."  It was the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament that stretched about 400 years.  For reference, America has been a country for 249 years.  So we are just over halfway through that period of silence that marked the difference between Old Testament prophets and the coming of the Messiah proclaimed through Gabriel and then through John the Baptist.

I struggle with insomnia as a result of my TBI.  It's currently 4:30am and my eyelids have yet to close.  Night is long when it's just you, the ceiling and nothing else.  I've tried to pray, paint, clean, and do a number of other things during that time.  Yet somehow I still manage to often find myself just sitting in the quiet of the darkness before sunrise.

I wonder if that's how it felt for Israel during those 400 years of silence.  No prophets.  No new words from God.  Just silence and darkness.  They saw the world go from Persia, to Greek, to Roman rule.  By the time Jesus is born, Rome is the world power and the Jews are a bit of a mess.

Even when Jesus was born, it would still be another 30ish years before He started what many call His "ministry."  When you've been waiting 400 years, longing for deliverance from God, an extra 30 years can look like nothing (by comparison), but I wonder if it felt like an eternity.  I wonder what Mary & Joseph thought.  I wonder how they felt when Jesus trained as a carpenter instead of a Rabbi.  Did they question His plan?

400 years is a long time.  Yet, we know what God has told us about His plans...

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:8-9

If I'm honest, 400 years is more time than I really know how to comprehend.  
How many generations lived and died during that time?
How many people were born and lived their whole lives trying to trust a God that was silent?

Hebrews tells us that even before than intertestamental period, the people of God were waiting...
"These were all commended for their faith yet none of them received what had been promised.  God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.  Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out of us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Do you feel forgotten?
Do you feel like your own darkness will never lift?
I must admit, that's where I am today.
The darkness can feel consuming.

But,
"we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

The 400 years of silence ended.
When the time was right (for God's time is always right):

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light; 
on those living in the land of
the shadow of death a light has dawned.
...
For to us a child is born,
to us a Son is given,
and the government will be on His shoulders,
and He will be called 
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom,
establishing ad upholding it with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
-Isaiah 9:2, 6-7

So, my fellow sojourners: take heart.  

Rejoice!
Rejoice!
Emmanuel has come. 


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