How many people feel like there is so much to do and so little time? After yesterday’s late night blog I decided to start cleaning my house and rearranging furniture to make room for the tree and nativity. I had accumulated quite a bit of clutter over the past month or so as I’ve been busy writing and creating again. While my mind is clearly focused on creating, it is not focused on organizing. I know I’m not alone in that area! We don’t have our tree yet – but it will look something like this . . .
As I cleaned the house and vacuumed, tossed things out, put things in a bag to give away and stacked items to be put away, I thought about the first Christmas and what that would have been like for Mary and Joseph. I wondered about that ‘nesting’ stage every pregnant woman goes through and how Mary and Joseph must have done some kind of preparation at home before they left for the census registration that Caesar Augustus had declared. And then I thought about this . . .
The whole world is always busy preparing for something . . . always – constantly getting ready – either waking up or getting ready to go to sleep. Getting ready for work, getting ready for school, getting ready. Now we are busy getting ready for Christmas, for family gatherings, for church services, for holiday performances and while we are doing all of this and while people were preparing for a census and their annual festivals – God was preparing himself for us. Yes, I’ll type that again –
God was preparing himself for us.
Part of that preparation was sending an angel to Mary with a message that God had found favor with her and she was to bear his son who would be the Savior of the World.
He still is the Savior of the World and God is still preparing the world to be in his presence – one generation at a time.
He sees us when we’re sleeping, He knows when we’re awake, He knows if we’ve been bad or good . . . and so do we – it is by Grace that God sent his son so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
Christmas is about more than one day – Christmas is really about eternity – it’s about God’s eternal love for each and every one of us. Christmas is also a message about how much God wants to be loved by us.
The message Jesus gave his disciples was to Love one another as he had loved them. Christmas is about Love, not romantic love, but about a Love that comes and just lays down in front of us, it’s about bonding with one another as a mother, a father, bonds with their newborn child. So God wants us to bond with His Son and with each other. To be present with one another is far more important than all the presents we will find under the tree. This is best understood by newborn infants, who don’t know anything about all our preparations and wish lists. And in their lack of ability to shop and spend money on us, their presence gives us more joy than all the gifts combined. We can reduce so much stress in our livees by remembering it is time spent with one another that matters most of all, spending time together is the best way to say, “I love you.”
Jesus won’t show up knocking at your door with a bagful of gifts, but he is standing at the door of our hearts wanting to be let in. My prayer is that more people will open their hearts and let Him in this year.
