ON THE TWELFTH day of Christmas my True Love sent to me twelve drummers drumming.
Imagine the
reality of heaven. Ponder being greeted
by twelve drummers drumming, a representative for each tribe of Israel,
drumming you in through the gates of eternity’s threshold.
What we’re
entering is a gift — nobody can take for granted the right to enter
heaven. It can only ever be a gift. It can only ever be grace that makes it
possible.
Jacob was renamed
Yisrael (Israel), meaning “God strives” or “God prevails” or “struggle with
God” in recognition that he could not overcome God when he wrestled all night with
the Angel of God (see Genesis 32:22-32).
Israel is a
reminder that we struggle with God and that we struggle with life. Indeed, it’s actually a very Jewish concept
to struggle, particularly as we discuss our differences — especially
theological differences.
The gift of God on
the twelfth day of Christmas is the reminder of the number 12 in the symbolism
of Israel, and the gift it is to know that we’re destined to
struggle.
Of all the days of
Christmas it’s appropriate to finish on it’s the twelfth day where the number
twelve depicts not only Israel who struggled with God, but it depicts just as
much the meaning of perfection and completion (as does the number seven). This means that, like Israel, we’re bound to
struggle with God, and we’re bound to do so in the totality of our lives. Not only that, but God will prevail, not only
over us, but for us, in the totality of our lives.
It’s a gift to
know these things; that God, by the character and nature of life, prevails. Because God prevails, Christ came, was born,
lived, and died, to reconnect us with the Father.
There’s no benefit
in us going against the grain of life or God or his purposes for righteousness
and justice in this life.
It’s a gift to
know that there’s no purpose in life other than the purposes that God anoints
by his divine will, power and Spirit.
On this final day
of Christmas so blessed are we to consider that our purpose in this life is to
serve God’s purposes.
On the cusp of
Christmas, the Christ-child came to remind us, even in a baby’s body, of the
Sovereign purpose of God, to redeem humankind; to do a thing humanity could not,
in all eternity, do for itself.
On the twelfth and
final day of Christmas my True Love sent to me twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree.
© 2015 Steve Wickham.
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