Hey guys, the chaos of the Holidays can send us striving for the comfort of our homes so we can hide from the crowds and traffic, hug a hot cup of cocoa as we wish for the Holidays to be over already. Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, so I hope you don’t feel that way. If you do, I hope this blog will rejuvenate your Christmas spirit and give your heart a refreshing jumpstart. I decided to call it Christmas Seasonings because sometimes we need little reminders of the truth to bring the sweet taste back into things.
Jesus is the Reason for the Season. Cute, right? Has a nice ring and seals the deal enough so people get the idea easily. So easily, we slap it conveniently on the back of our cars or stretch a banner over our garage during the Holidays, but do we honestly see the value in such a statement?
Maybe this will help. My family and I just recently watched an uplifting movie called ‘Saving Christmas’. Kirk Cameron gives a mind-blowing, fresh perspective on Christmas and the meaning behind our traditions, so I decided to share it with you guys : )
To think the ONLY reason the nativity scene is so amazing is because Baby Jesus is there misses a huge part of what is going on. The birth of Baby Jesus is valuable BECAUSE of the STORY He enters in to.
Picture the nativity scene, but take away the cutesy stable, little spotless lambs kneeling by the adorable, comfy-looking cradle and imagine a cave. It’s cold, dark and in the middle of the rocky floor is a feeding trough carved out of a rock. A rock! Cold, hard, not the ideal place for a newborn baby. Now paint the scene of a time where Herod’s soldiers were scouring the streets looking for babies and murdering them, the same timeline when Jesus was born. He was born into a world where the powers that be wanted to kill Him just for being born.
So we have a cold, dark cave where a newborn baby who lay on a large rock meant as a feeding trough for wild animals, born in a time when the king was ruthlessly seeking to murder Him. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about Mary and Joseph. You have Mary and Joseph, and Baby Jesus, but the Bible points to something that is quite significant that we tend to gloss over, thinking it is just a prop that is part of the display.
If we take out Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus just for a moment, it leaves us with just the swaddling cloth. What is swaddling cloth, is it just a blanket for a baby? We tend to only think of BABY Jesus being wrapped into those swaddling cloths but the Bible once again reflects on that seemingly insignificant prop at Jesus’ tomb when they found the tomb and the cloth EMPTY.
The cloth in the tomb was empty because it could not hold the body wrapped inside. Jesus escaped death as a baby by the hand of God and He conquered death as an adult by that very same hand, and because that cloth could not hold Him, death still cannot win.
Here’s another thing, we sing carols of how the wisemen brought frankincense and myrrh to Jesus when he was born, but have you ever thought why the wisemen would bring burial spices to Jesus’ birth? The Birth scene is a coming picture of the burial scene. The soldiers don’t get to kill the baby though, Jesus came to die but it was according to His Father’s plan, in His Father’s timing, and on His Father’s terms. The death of Jesus is not the tragic end to the story, it was the plan all along to offer His body as bread for the hungry and shed His blood to cover the sins of the guilty. Now put the baby back into the scene. A baby who came to die, but not until the appointed time.
Stay tuned for part two: coming soon!
Merry Christmas!
Be bold and shine.
-Becca.
Crimson Letters 