| CHRISTMAS Ahhhhhhh! |
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Ok, so what is Christmas? It's certainly not the press of the shopping malls that drives so many of us this time of year and drives the rest of us insane. It's not the presents, community decorations or the decorations that we put on our own homes. It is not the endless list of things to do and people to see. It's not cookies, cakes and many of the other delicious things we will prepare, partake in and then regret later. As wonderful as it is, it is not even the pure joy and wonder that we see in the eyes of our small children.
So you think you have the pat answer? Jesus is the reason for the season and all of that. It's true, but I need to go past the surface and go deeper to think what it really truly is to me. I don't know about you but I just need to set time aside to contemplate it.
Could it be the day that God decided to put into action His ultimate redemptive plan for all mankind? He didn't have to. As a matter of fact, if it had been left up to us we would have given up on each other long before. He didn't just send a messenger, He was the messenger and the message. He didn't just send a replacement to take on undeserved suffering. He was the suffering one. He suffered before He came, as He felt repeated rejection from his own creation after delivering them and giving them opportunity time and time again to love Him the way He so deserved. - (Side note: If you have ever had your own flesh and blood say something that cuts you like a knife, then you have a very tiny, very miniscule idea of how that must feel.) He came anyway. He suffered while he was here and his suffering here started from the moment He was born. While most of us indulge ourselves in a vision of a cozy little happy family huddled in a quite manger on a clear night, He was being hunted down as no human child had ever been before or since. He was cold and it didn't smell good in that stall. But through it all He was content to be the Savior of the world no matter what the cost. None of us can argue that his suffering only grew worse day by day as He made His journey through his short life on earth to the cross. Then the darkest day of all time when the very creator of you and I, in the form of his own son, died the most horrible death imaginable, yet to this day we reject and neglect Him even after He bestowed such a perfect gift.
Christmas? The day we set aside to remember that He is love in the most unfathomable purest form. He is love and although He is God and He can do anything, even hate us if He chooses, He never will because He loves us with a completely unquenchable, undeniable, indestructible love. All He has ever wanted in return is our love no matter how small and inadequate in comparison. And knowing our own inability and unwillingness to acknowledge who He is, He gave the eternal gift of himself again and finally as He laid his life down as the only acceptable price for my despicable sinful nature.
That God would bestow to me everything He has, joint heirs with Christ himself, is an incredible gift in itself and something so undeserved. But so much greater than this is that God would bestow to me all that HE IS. HE IS love shining forth from a manger so long ago. HE IS ultimate sacrificial love broken for me on the cross. HE IS perfect redeeming love beeming triumphantly from outside the empty tomb. There just are no words to describe such a gift as HE IS and that's Christmas to me. |
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