Veiled In Flesh

By Michael Thompson

Heaven kissed earth in a Bethlehem stable. Veiled in our flesh, God got too close for comfort.

 

Forget every sappy Christmas movie you've ever seen. Those stories can't hold a candle to the characters, emotion and plot of the actual drama of Christmas. The rote Bible stories recited each year in traditional services and children's pageants may be well worn. But they are not worn out. There is much more to Christmas than tinsel, trees and too many treats.

 

In a place no king in his right mind would visit, much less allow his son to be born, God came. He inaugurated a single life that would alter every life that followed. The stories of the Season show that God went farther than we could dream, to give us more than we could imagine.

 

Everything changed that one silent night.

 

Advent—"The Coming"—is the preparation to celebrate that coming. Veiled In Flesh brings new light and breathes new life into the oft-told stories of angels, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, Magi, manger and all the rest. Read it carefully, thoughtfully. You will find gifts in Christmas you've never unwrapped before.

 

Advent Devotional, 112 Pages

• Language: English
• Publisher: Revival Life Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393721826

Michael Thompson

Michael cut his teeth on church pews. He grew up in a tight-knit pastor’s home and then spent 20 years of his professional life as a worship leader and senior pastor. However, ministry success was derailed by moral failure that painfully altered the trajectory of his life, family and ministry. But God was not finished. In extravagant grace, He has restored Michael and Dianne. Their rescued marriage and rebuilt family are a living message of hope and healing for the Body of Christ. This journey birthed an unquenchable passion: to see life as it is transformed into life as it should be. You feel this fire in his books. He and Dianne have made it their singular pursuit to discover the design, desire and delight of the Father. Spending the last 20 years in the marketplace has also given him a unique perspective. Knitting together the distinct realms of church and commerce results in Michael’s rather visceral understanding of Kingdom living. Michael and Dianne have been married over 40 years. They have three adult children who with their loves have given them a growing brood of grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2020 by Michael W. Thompson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: An application to register this book for cataloging has been submitted to the Library of Congress.

Paperback ISBN: 9798555492340

Library of Congress Number: number here

Paperback and E-Book, First Edition: October 2020

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.® ~ Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com ~ Scripture quotations marked JBP are from The New Testament in Modern English, copyright © 1958, 1959, 1960 J.B. Phillips and 1947, 1952, 1955, 1957 The Macmillian Company, New York. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ~ Scriptures marked ESV are taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION (ESV): ~ Scriptures taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION ® Copyright© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. ~ Scripture marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ~ Scripture marked MSG are from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. ~ Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Public Domain). ~ Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All italics and bold type in Scripture quotations represent the author’s emphasis.

Cover Design: Caitlin Thompson

Illustrations: Brian Anderson

Dedication

This book is lovingly dedicated to my mother, Edna Thompson. No one I’ve ever known loved Christmas as much. She did not know to call it Advent—never saw an Advent calendar or lit an Advent candle. But her life revolved around this celebration. I love Advent as much as I do because mom loved Christmas like she did. She showed me what it meant to really celebrate. I’m not sure Jesus was ever welcomed with so much joy.

Mom. I know you love seeing His face.

I know He loves seeing yours.

See you both soon!

Table Of Contents

Prelude: It’s All About The Baby / 1

The Thrill Of Hope / 5

More Than You Prayed For / 11

Here’s Your Sign / 17

From Now On / 21

Babe Magnet / 25

Every Longing Heart / 29

Veiled In Flesh / 33

The Manger / 37

Now You See Him / 41

Comfort and Joy / 45

Spitting Image / 49

What’s In A Name? / 53

The Soul Felt It’s Worth / 57

That’s What I Meant / 61

They Opened Their Treasures / 67

Sawdust, Shepherds and a Savior / 71

Con Carne / 75

Just Like Me / 79

I Wouldn’t Go There / 83

Unsung / 87

My Eyes Have Seen / 91

Why On Earth? / 95

Reading His Palms / 99

A Living Nativity / 103

A Different Kind of New Year / 107

No Reset Needed / 111

What Remains / 115

Sacred Pandemonium / 119

Postlude: The One Who Changed Everything / 123

Prelude: It’s All About The Baby!

Time’s calendar is bent in half around one ancient birth.

Everything about how the world works shifted the second that Baby was born. In the little town of Bethlehem, eternity collided with time. AD became BC. And from that impact, an entirely new form of living emerged.

Everything changed in one Silent Night.

The Babe, the Virgin, the manger, the star, the shepherds, the Magi...all so familiar to us now, were on that first Christmas night startling signs of the invasive presence of a new Kingdom.

That event—that Advent—could not be a bigger deal.

Unfortunately, the cosmic shift that realigned the trajectory of time has lost much of its significance. The history-shaping consequence of Heaven kissing earth as a Babe in a manger has been lost to our culture. Christmas today means anything but good tidings of great joy to all people (Luke 2:10).

At its most basic level, Christmas is just big business to most of western culture. Through massive commercialization, Christmas creep in retail now starts before the turkey casserole from Thanksgiving is cold. We spend over $700 billion annually—$45 million in Christmas trees alone! Break it down and that’s nearly $800 per person in America just over this single holiday.

But this Season—this Holy Night we celebrate—is about so much more.

The rampant commercialization of Christmas has caused the nearly complete secularization of Christmas. The result is the abject trivialization of Christmas where a mythic Santa upstages the majestic Jesus at the center of it all.

Sadly, Christmas—this special, supernatural Season—has become disconnected from its origin and drained of its meaning. It’s as if culture has declared that The Baby just doesn't matter anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Grinch. I love the lights, trees, gifts, food...all the stuff of the Season. My earliest memories of Christmas with family are like a warm blanket in which my heart happily snuggles. But something deeper has grown for me. You might say, I’ve become an Advent addict.

I celebrate Christmas. But I honor Advent...the Coming.

A Babe who would be King breaks into time from eternity. Kingdoms of this world invaded by the Kingdom of His Christ.  

This arrival of a whimpering baby was the whisper of God. His Word to His World. God wrapping himself in our skin so we could get a picture of what He meant for us to be from before time began, (John 1).

Advent is so much more than Christmas. Advent is where we focus on Mary, Joseph and Bethlehem. It is here that we see an innkeeper, shepherds and wise men. We glimpse a star, a stable and a manger. And this extraordinary collection of bit players is just the backdrop for the real story.

His story. History.

I don’t really care whether you call it Christmas or know it as Advent as long as one truth remains central.

It's all about The Baby!

What follows are reflections that rise from that core understanding of Advent. Musings about a God who loved us so much that He’d come to our place to live in our lives so we could see what we can be when we look like Him. I encourage you to read one each day to set your thoughts toward what Advent really means.

Together, we’ll unwrap these familiar moments that make up the Nativity narrative and uncover the Divine beauty that was veiled in flesh.

Perhaps we can approach these scenes fresh—with tender hearts that prepare Him room. If we do, we will see ourselves better and we will discover our truest identity.

If we pause long enough, we will see God...

...when God looked like us.

The Thrill of Hope

Christ Jesus our hope.

~1 Timothy 1:1

Nineteen years is a long time.

Especially when most of those years have involved suffering of the deepest kind. The soul kind.

Jamie was a surfer kid who grew up around the kids in our church. He hit the waves often, sold surf