December is a wonderful time of year. Yes, I know, it gets cold in the hills and hollers of southern Indiana. And yes, I know, we could get a big snow at the most inconvenient moment. But December is wonderful because it is the month we pause to celebrate the best gift ever – the gift of the infant Christ. Consequently, the joy of Christmas is always best viewed through the eyes of a child.
Each December as we unpack our nativity scene, I smile to remember a Christmas when our oldest daughter Emily was very young. I had arranged the characters in the scene as always with the shepherd and sheep peering in from the outside. Sometime later, however, I passed the nativity and discovered the sheep were all inside the stable. I didn’t think much about it as I rearranged them but later in the day, they were back in again. Now I was puzzled. This went on for a couple of days but neither Elsie nor I had touched them, so how did they get there? We were mystified; Emily was much too small to be moving them, wasn’t she? But sure enough, we discovered that it was Emily. Each time she had pulled a step stool over to reach the table and rearrange the sheep. Her explanation? “Sheep belong in a barn.”
She was right – livestock belong in a stable; a manger is no place to lay a baby. Sheep are at home around a feeding trough, but the infant Jesus deserved better. But with such a humble birth, God demonstrated his incredible love for all people. He didn’t come solely for the famous, the rich or the powerful. No, he came quietly, simply and humbly so that he could relate to everyone, from the least to the greatest. And aren’t you glad that we too are welcomed at the foot of his manger? You see, his birth made possible our new birth!
So, during this season, don’t get so busy in preparing for the holidays that you forget to prepare your heart to worship the One who came to be the Light of the world. Stay close to him this Christmas!
