A Humble Christmas

Well, my weekend is over already and I can hardly believe it! Where DID the time go??? I just got out of a nice hot shower, so with my hair smelling like peaches (thats the shampoo I have at the moment!) I thought I would sit down and document the thoughts running through this incredibly complex and scary place that is my mind! :P

My cat is currently gnawing on a branch of my christmas tree.....he feasts upon the fake branches every single christmas ever since we got the darn thing LOL Today I went into Crazy Clarks really quickly to pick up a few things...stickie tape, parcel tags, christmas cards and tinsel since it seems my husband threw our tinsel out LOL For a brief moment, I found myself wandering the aisles of my local cheapie joint, and nearly getting sucked into the christmas money making machine.....perhaps I should get some lights, or maybe some more baubles for the tree, a traditional stocking to hang off my bookshelf maybe, or perhaps some more presents......just as quickly I pulled myself up...after all I have been the one bemoaning the commercialisation of my favourite holiday!

It makes me sad that our perspective is so obscured regarding the birthday of our Lord. I mean, after all, thats what it really is right??? When you take away the tinsel, and the lights, and the reindeer and the sleigh and the Satan...oh I mean, SANTAS (Im sure by that mistype my point has been made) when you take all that stuff away, what's left is a baby, lying in a feeding trough. This would seem insignificant if that baby wasnt God himself made flesh. Oh sure, people would like to diminish that fact..after all its more comfortable to think of Jesus as a harmless little baby, giggles, smiles and drool....one of the many things I dont like about Christmas is that is where we leave Jesus....as a baby. There is little to mention of what that baby grows up to become, how that baby becomes the saviour of the world, how He came down from heaven, left the glory of the almighty, and suffered a human life...pain, suffering, poverty, betrayal, and thats all BEFORE the cross, just so that we can be made right with God. When we lay our presents at the foot of our Christmas trees this year, what we really should remember is the gift God laid down for us on the cross...the gift of His Son. Baubles, and tinsel, and lights, and presents, and santas, and elves, and reindeer.....it all means nothing. Absolutely nothing. What matters is that when that little baby was born a plan that existed since the beginning of time was put into motion...a plan that we didnt understand. He walked among us and we did not recognise him....and through our haze of ignorance, and in fact despite it, Jesus emerged at calvary, ready to lay down His life for those who scorned him most....after all they were the ones that needed Him most. I find myself saddened that we have regressed....once again we don't recognise him..once again we have lost the meaning of his life, his death, even his birth. Symbolism is only useful when it leads us towards the true origin of its representation - if it does not do this it is corrupt. I fear this year that once again, Christmas has been corrupted, drawing innocents AWAY from Jesus rather than to him. I pray this year we remember not just that He was born, but that He LIVES....that He went to the cross and rose again - let us remember him not just as a baby, but as the almighty all powerful Son of God, who walked this life and died so that we might have eternal life with God.