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This gave full meaning to the words of Creator spoken long ago by the prophet,
"A young virgin will be with child and give birth to a son.
They will call his name Immanuel, which in our tribal language means Creator Is with Us.

Gift from Creator Tells the Good Story (Matthew) 1:22-23 FNVNT 

All these orchestrated events leading up to Jesus birth are meaningful in themselves, in the now of Matthew's time, and meaningful for us today. 
And they carry forward meaning from the prophet Isaiah (see Isaiah 7:14)
The First Nations version captures something here for us, "Creator is with us".
How does this work that the Creator of all we can see and know and discover is now with us? With us as the fulfillment of ancient prophecy, with us as the hoped for Messiah to bring freedom from the oppression of the Romans, to be God-with-us in 2023, and with us as our hope of a new earth, of shalom restored, of every-tear-wiped-away, our hope that the glimpses we have of how things should be, will be. 
Jesus is the fulfillment and the promise, and the hope, packaged up as a fully human baby wrapped in cloths, being held by his Dad, nurtured by his Mum...
What a wild story we get to sit with at Christmas. 
#christmas2023
#theBigStory
#Creatoriswithus
#hope

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