What if … Christmas?
Here we are in the Christmas season. What does that mean? Does it bring the scent of cookies and pine? Do songs play in your mind and heart, like I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas or Silent Night? Is there a Christmas tree with treasured ornaments and bright sparkling lights casting a warmth in your home? Are you wearing a new sweater? Are all the presents wrapped and waiting for excited children to laugh and tear into them?
What if none of these things were in your home? You have a warm home and there’s food for each meal. You thank God for His faithful provision. But gifts for children and grandchildren, Christmas cookies and that special meal haven’t been a part of God’s provision in many years. What is left to celebrate? This isn’t a random or unusual story. This may be the life of someone you sit next to at the Christmas service. Someone who works next to you at the office. Can you imagine that it is you? When all the trimmings of Christmas are not part of your life, what is left to celebrate?
Maybe that is when we truly understand the story of Christ’s birth. We can see ourselves in nothing more than the shelter of a barn. We have nothing to give the King except ourselves. We draw close to Him with only our love and our need for a Savior. When we sing The Little Drummer Boy or Come All Ye Faithful there is a lump in our throats as we sing, O come let us adore Him, Christ the LORD! Suddenly our hearts and minds are filled with Him, Christ the LORD, because there is noting else!
Rejoice, again I say – Rejoice! Always keep the gentleness of Christ shining from you because He is returning soon. Don’t worry for anything. Instead, pray about it all and trust God and His peace will come upon you, as He promised. This peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in His plan for your life. – Philippians 4:4-7 (my paraphrase)
What Child is This? Written by William Chatterton Dix (1865) and sung by Andrea Bocelli and Mary J Blige