What an exciting time of year! Christmas is just days away and it's actually cold outside (for the moment anyway -- enjoy!). This is the season of multiplied joy and increased expressions of love, gratitude and a a renewed awareness of all that Christmas really means. It's so easy to get carried away with the sights and sounds of the holidays -- and without realizing it, make Christmas about all that stuff. I love it, but it's pretty insignificant when compared to God's plan for the ages -- the incarnation -- that God would visit earth in the likeness of human flesh.Bethlehem's story cannot be overstated. To imagine that the King of Glory would subject Himself to the place of servanthood -- to the pains, emotions -- the emptiness and aloneness that so often come with being human. And still He came, knowing what would ultimately be required as the Only Able Sacrifice for the sins of the human race. God in a manger -- imagine that! But we dare not leave him there.
He hasn't come to give us the warm fuzzies of the Christmas season; He didn't come so that we could have all the "extras" scattered at the base of the tree. All those things are fading and temporal. Jesus came that we might have life -- real life. As John puts it so well in his gospel account of Christmas, 'In Him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men" John 1:4.
In this busy season, why not decide to slow down, gather your thoughts -- make it less about "the stuff of Christmas" and more about "The Savior of Christmas!" ". . . and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" Mt. 1:21b"
