Let me be one of the first ones to wish you a Merry Christmas.  This advent season we are going to look at the OT prophecies to Jesus’ birth.  They are just as God-breathed as the stories in the NT.  And looking at the line of Jesus reaching back to Abraham (Adam in Luke’s gospel), shows us that Jesus did not just appear out of no where.  He had parents and grandparents and great-grandparents in a long line to people whose stories and whose lives we read about in the OT.  And because of this we have a rich heritage before us.  Because as Christians, we too are heirs of Abraham.  We are part of God’s family and with it the royal privileges that come with it.  So this week, celebrate being children of the king and reveal in the miracle of his presence with us.