The first day of the last month of 2017. I love December. (And before you say it means winter is here, I like winter. Yes, I do.) December is the month where we celebrate the birth of our Savior (whether He was actually born in December or not!). Everything is adorned with lights and evergreens, with colors and candles. Tonight a few of us will gather to decorate the church, and tomorrow Bob and I will put up a few decorations at home also.
We don’t do as much as we used to do. Getting up on a ladder to hang lights isn’t as easy for a man who turns 78 in a few months as it was a couple decades ago. We’ll put up a few (low-hanging), and set up the tree. Maybe a few other things inside. We will, however, put up an old outdoor manger scene that I have had for decades. Every year we must fix what was broken the previous year by the wind and weather conditions. Every year Bob thinks we should toss it, but I won’t let him. We’ll fix it and the lights on it until we can’t fix it any more.
To me that old manger scene with Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child, signifies what is truly important about this season. What is “Christ”mas after all without “Christ?” There is absolutely no significance at all in this “holiday” unless it is truly a “holy”day which reminds us of the great love of our God which endures forever.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” [John 1:14 NIV]
Let’s keep the season centered in Christ. If we take “Christ” out of “Christ”mas, all that’s left really is just a “silly commercial season.”
