A Christmas musical presented by New Life Christian Church in 2009.

As I set forth for work this morning, I felt moved to share my personal thoughts on the vision behind the christmas musical . With the christmas musical album completed and just one day away from staging it in church, I feel in a sense like one of the wise men in the musical who has come to the end of his search...Looking back over the last six months, this has been yet another remarkable spiritual journey in my life with the Lord.

When I was asked to come up with something for Christmas six months ago, I sought the Lord and one night as I was contemplating this in bed, the vision of doing a musical was placed in my heart and the seed was planted. The Lord started by giving me these words " In that one defining moment, when love reached down to me and touched my heart so tenderly and made his home in me. In that one defining moment, when the course of history changed . When love combined with grace divine came down to earth for me".

I was completely overwhelmed by this revelation and deeply moved because for me, those words captured very essence of Christmas. For God so loved the world that He gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life. It was love that actuated God to give his only son , a gift which all can appropriate by faith through grace. It is a love so deep , so divine that defies our human understanding and comprehension. We can never fathom the depths of his love.

What then should be our response as people who have gratefully received the greatest gift of all? I can think of no better way to describe this than by recounting the true story of one man, Nate Saint.

Nate Saint was one of five American missionaries, called by God to go to the jungles of Ecuador in late 1955 to introduce the Gospel to one of the most savage people groups on earth at the time - the primitive Auca (Waodani) Indians. Once they found the Aucas in the dense jungles, it was Nate who, as a seasoned pilot, landed them on a narrow beach by the Curaray River. The missionaries were later martyred but today their murderers are leaders of the Waodani Church.

As you read the following words from one of heaven's heroes, listen knowing that this is the heart of God about Christmas. Nate Saint wrote in his journal on December 18, 1955:

"As we have a high old time this Christmas, may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever having a chance. May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was. May we shed tears of repentance for these we have failed to bring out of the darkness. Beyond the smiling scenes of Bethlehem, may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha. May God give us a new vision of His will concerning the lost -- and our responsibility."

His words are sometimes hard to hear in the middle of all our Christmas activity, the frenzy and hurriedness of everyday life. But they are important to hear because they reflect why there is a Christmas. It is all about a spiritual rescue mission that cost the Son of God His life. That mission was clearly spelt out to Joseph when the angel announced the coming of Jesus to him in Matthew 1:21, our word for today from the Word of God. "You are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." The very name Jesus means "the Lord saves" -- that is "save" as in a rescuer's saving people from the rubble at Ground Zero, or a firefighter's saving people from a burning building. Sin is the burning building we are in; trapped with no way out -- except for heaven's Rescuer, Jesus Christ, who gave His life rescuing ours with the "crushing agony of Golgotha."

Twenty-one days after penning those words, Nate Saint died, attempting to rescue some of those very people.

In these countdown days to Christmas, lets all pray for God to open up some amazing opportunities to tell someone about Him -- why He came, why He died, and what He does when we open our life to Him. Because Christmas is all about a rescue mission -- to intervene for someone who is, in Nate Saint's words, hurtling "headlong into a Christless night without ever having a chance." This Christmas, you and I can be that chance.

Written by Christopher Chuah, the producer and the person who wrote the songs of the musical.

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