So glad you can be here for today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Tim Gustafson wrote today's reading, and he titled it When Life Appeared.

In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine dominated the world's attention.

As the magnitude of the catastrophe became apparent, officials scrambled to the critically essential task of containing the radiation.

Lethal gamma rays from highly radioactive debris kept destroying the robots deployed to clean up

the mess.

So, they had to use bioreobots.

Human beings, thousands of heroic individuals became Chernobyl liquidators,

disposing of the hazardous material in shifts of 90 seconds or less.

People did what technology could not,

at great personal risk.

Long ago, our rebellion against God introduced a catastrophe

that led to all other catastrophes.

Through Adam and Eve,

we chose to part ways with our creator,

and we made our world a toxic mess in the process.

We could never clean it up ourselves. That's the whole point of Christmas.

The Apostle John wrote of Jesus in 1 John chapter 2, the life appeared.

We have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. Then John declared, the blood of Jesus, God's

son, purifies us from all sin.

Jesus has provided what his creatures could not.

As we believe in him, he restores us to a right relationship with his father.

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