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Merriest ALMOST Christmas to all of you my OOBTers! It’s hard to believe this episode release happens less than one week before Christmas so let’s be sure we spend some time slowing our hearts and minds to lean into that story; to be fully prepared to celebrate that baby in the manger on Christmas Day.

With that thought in mind, how about we start our time in this episode in the Christmas story with the Passover and dedication of the firstborn…. Makes perfect sense right?! Well, I certainly hope it does by the end of our time together anyway. LOL! This connection leads us to an often overlooked part of Jesus’ birth story, his first visit to the Temple where Simeon and Anna met him. Oh, that one is such a beautiful example of God as our Promise Keeper. We’ll then move right into a part of the story that took place roughly two years after Jesus’ birth = the visit of the Wise Men, God warning Joseph in a dream to escape to Egypt for safety, King Herod’s massacre of the innocents, and then God later calling them back out of Egypt and to Nazareth where Jesus spent the rest of his growing up years.

We are also reminded once again that all of this… the light and the darkness, the hard and the good of the Christmas story, are all part of God’s rescue plan… the plan in existence and in process since that first sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden. Through it all, we see the threads of redemption and rescue weaved throughout the storyline of Christmas…actually the storyline of the entire Bible. Beautiful. Just beautiful.