How was your Christmas? I bet you had to think about your answer! Even though it’s only been thirty days, it may seem like such a long time ago!
Most of us decked the halls for the big celebration. In keeping with the spirit, we strung lights and decorated the chosen tree. We decked the halls of our homes with festive colors, stockings were hung by the chimney with care, and, of course, a manger scene took its place in prominent display.
We joyfully sang and listened to carols for weeks. We wished even total strangers “Merry Christmas” and spread good cheer. We took time off from work. No distance was too great for families to be together. We cooked and ate. We reminisced about Christmases past and renewed family traditions. We gave gifts and sent cards. We watched holiday shows, attended church pageants and read sacred stories about that not so silent night 2,000 years ago. We even attended an extra worship service by candlelight.
Like a winter snowfall, there was a flurry of activity, emotion, and focus – all intended to exalt and celebrate the birth of Jesus. But then as quickly as it came, the skies cleared and it was over and it all went back in the box – including Jesus – keeping Him safe and secure with all the other decorations for another year.
What about in our own lives? Does our full devotion to Jesus melt away with the season and go back in the box as well?
Advent. Jesus came to change things. His birth, His Name, His Presence should make a difference. Immanuel, God with us. Heaven come to earth. God become a man.
As glorious as His birth, He didn’t just appear and then “go back in the box.” Like His first recorded miracle at a wedding in Cana, He saved the best until last. Over an incredible three-year earthly ministry, He gave of Himself. But on the Cross, He gave Himself. The new covenant in His blood. A new vintage. The best wine.
That’s the miracle of transformation – water into wine, grief into joy, fragmented lives into wholeness, death into life, the cross into a crown. God’s specialty.
It’s been a whole thirty days since Christmas. Where is Jesus? Did He stay in the manger and go back in the box or has He risen in your heart in all His majesty?
By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. 1Timothy 3:16 NASB
© 2014 Tim McKenzie
On Every Word Ministries
www.OnEveryWord.com