The Blank Page

In my Bible, with its tissue thin pages, is a blank page. A blank page denoting the ending of the Old Testament before the start of the New.

This page seems so fleeting in its marking of the transition from the old to the new. Yet it spans a period of 400 years. And in these 400 years God was quiet. That blank page marks more than a pause, more than a breather but 400 years. 400 years of silence from God.

In that time the Jewish people continued to live. To see new generations grow up and old ones pass away. They lived and loved. Empires rose and fell. All to a back drop of silence. No word from God who had been so ever present with His direction and words.

Did they continue to look for Him? Did they continue to listen for Him? Was Hope still in their hearts, waiting to see God move again? Waiting to hear His voice?

We all encounter blank pages in our lives. Silence from God, and we’re held waiting for His presence in our need. Waiting for Him to speak, to move in our lives. To bring the start of a new chapter, to bring the demarcation between what was to what is.

In our own blank page of life we need to remain expectant. When we’re waiting for a miracle, for an answer to prayer, for a breakthrough – we wait for God to move.

The story of Christmas is not that we came to God, but that God came to us. And when He comes into our stories, our lives today, we too can cross over from the old to the new.

This Christmas may we behold His glory.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

O come o come Emmanuel.