It is ‘Christmas Sunday’ today. That last Sunday before Christmas arrives. The chance for you to wear all your fancy Christmas clothes to church one last time this year. It is also 2020, a year where so many are quarantined in their homes away from friends and family. Our little country church had a much lower attendance today. When about 1/3 of the church members were on the stage to sing about the gift of baby Jesus, those of us left in the audience were few and far between… great for ‘social distancing’ I guess.
Each year some of my children performs in the annual Nativity play. It looks different from year to year. Most years it is performed by the children, often close to a wooden stable that is placed in the front of the auditorium. This year the focus was on the manger alone. Placed prominently on the stage, it drew your eye to the backlight cross above. Mary and Joseph (SJ and Little Man) came down the aisle to take their place around the manger. A stirring depiction of Christ, but in reality an empty box. From where I sat you could not see inside and could only guess the manger was empty. It looked good. It played its part. It served the purpose of drawing your mind and eye to Christ. It DID all the right things, but the heart of that box was a void…an empty place… You see without Christ your life is empty.
You can look the part of a Christian. You can follow the rules. You can know the Bible. You can be filled with the knowledge OF Christ without being filled WITH CHRIST. I think this is often the hardest part of being raised in a Christian home. It is a place where Christianity is lived and taught almost as a morality. Children with Christian parents know all about how to be a Christian, but that does not save them! There is no grandfathered in Christians… It does not matter if your grandma, your grandpa, your mom, your dad, and your great aunt Betty are Christian. Until YOU choose for yourself to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not be saved. The tricky part is being raised around Christians means you have enough head knowledge to ‘believe’. But did you know you can believe something and still not DO IT?! Doing it in this case means that you are surrendering your life to the will of Christ Jesus. The trusting in Christ comes when you are letting him be the boss.
Oftentimes we forget that we celebrate Christmas to remember a baby born in a stable and laid in a manger. We start thinking it is about the hustle and bustle of the season. We look at the lights in awe when we should be focused on the creator of light. We agonize over the ‘perfect’ gift when we reject the only true perfect gift. We eat until our heart and gut are more than content making us uncomfortable and needing new clothes. Our eyes can lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas. One way we try to keep the focus of Christmas both fun and meaningful is to make sure we are focusing on the important things in life. Christ, family, and friends are how we place our importance. Today held a good mixture of all three.
An old tradition of ours, Christmas craft and Gingerbread house construction with our friend “Abbie B” once again filled our kitchen table this year… (yes I am aware her name has changed, but we will forever call her that). This year her sweet hubby and most precious baby joined in the fun! It was such a blessing to hear our girls laugh about all their shared jokes over the years. They discussed memories of the past and shared what keeps them busy now. They even convinced her to read a story that she read to them each Christmas when she was our mother’s helper, and they were just little girls. Another fun benefit is she has a lot of sisters and we were blessed that two of them showed up with husbands and children in tow also. We were blessed to hug necks and snuggle new babies we had not met yet. Our hearts are full.
The young women in this family, all 5 of them have impacted our life in so many ways. One taught us piano, another taught ukulele. They cared for our babies, always making the time they were babysitting fun adventures. They have played games, sang songs, taught memory verses, and completed craft projects. They have helped homeschool, taught art lessons, held teen bible studies, and taken the children to sing at the nursing homes. They have vacationed with us, churched with us, taught back yard bible club, and one had SJ in her wedding. Most importantly, they have been Godly examples of young Christian girls, now Godly women, that have grown to be wives (4 of 5) and mothers. They have each been a light to my girls in this dark world. They have each invested of their time and desired to sow into my daughters. The JOY my girls feel when they visit is evident. (((Good Job Mama B!)))
Proverbs 31:10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
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