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Dang, it's been awhile. Anyhoo, I just wanted to wish everyone (meaning the few people who read this) a merry Christmas! Now, I'd like to apologize to any atheists about this, but I'd like to note the reason we have this holiday of giving. "Holiday" does mean "holy day", after all.
Ah, yes, we've all heard about baby Jesus being born of a virgin whose best Christmas gift was simply a scrappy cloth and some mothers milk, and Joseph who wasn't sure whether to accept the child or throw him and Mary into the local gator pond. But most people think of the nativity scene as their salvation. They leave it as a cute bible story and then move on to the poiso-I mean fruitcake.
I hate to break it to you, but for our salvation, blood had to be spilled- and no, it wasn't Mary's. (Sorry, catholics. Mary was the instrument, not the lamb.) Yes, God the creator came to his sin-struck earth as a drooling, bald, crying baby. The little clay nativity scenes you see at the street corner have taken a lot of creative licence. For example:
I doubt Mary was kneeling so far from her firstborn. I doubt she looked so thin and pure and beautiful. Heck, I doubt the very place was beautiful at all. It probably looked like a slaughterhouse. (Excuse the graphics.) Joseph was probably leaning on his staff, still wondering if the Holy Spirit had sired this child or trying to find out if the kid's nose looked like God's or Jon Doe's. They were probably both tired as ever, and she was leaning on a pack of hay with the child in her arms, Joseph's hand on her shoulder. (The shepherds and wise guys came later.)
Yes, blood had to be spilled. And this same Jesus which laid in a manger with the lingering smell of sheep urine and cow dung the first thing he smells is the same whose feet turned water into a solid and the same whose calloused hands were nailed open and whose cracked, dry lips last tasted a cheap vinegar wine, and the same whose body literally vanished from the graveclothes (that's what the words in the good book really mean) and the same who came as a lamb and who will come back as a lion.
He chose the manger. He chose the carpenter. He chose the virgin. He chose the mountain. He chose the nails. Buddy, if the Roman soldier had dropped his hammer, Jesus would have nailed his hand himself. It's not like hammers were unfamiliar to him. He chose his birth, he chose his life, he chose his death, and he chose you. The best gift to get this year is This same Jesus living in your heart-and no, it won't rob your pocket.
 Ellakazelle · Tue Dec 25, 2007 @ 05:39pm · 0 Comments |
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