Family Christmas (It's Christmas Time)

Contemplating “Incarnation” for Christmas time takes us past anticipating Christ’s
arrival in Advent to the actual arrival of the Christ in “carne”, that is, in the flesh. The
root is the same for the word “carnal”. Christ has come in the flesh. His Incarnation
is for all mankind. However, Christ has also come in the Spirit into believers’ hearts
personally. His indwelling is a personal “Christmas” time we can celebrate daily.
As a person repents (a life direction change of heart), Christ comes to dwell in
the life of that believer. That person becomes a child of God, a son or daughter
in the family of God. As such, celebrating our personal “Christmas” is a family
celebration in which the angels of heaven also rejoice. This song started with my
brother Ken recommending the song “Even If” by “Mercy Me”, followed shortly by
seeing a Matthew Keller Facebook post that included the following: “My brother
and his family of 5 live in the hangar. Plus both my airplanes and his Super Cub
rebuild project. It may not be overly spacious, but it is full of hustle and bustle, and
projects, and noise, and kids’ toys, and tools, and love. My girls and I went down
for a quick art session turned dance party with the cousins right before bed.” I
recognized a rhythm of life portrayed that could be put directly over the music in
the chorus of “Even If”. I also realized the music needed to be changed. However,
I inadvertently changed it into the melody from another hit song. It took a couple
years, and the motivation of presenting it here this evening at Arts for the Kingdom,
to rework the song into its current form.