Dear Old Friend,
I put up my Christmas yard decoration this past
weekend.
My husband made it years ago,
to my specifications, and I love it because I think it tells the whole story. As I was dragging it out of the garage this
year, I thought about how we usually get the story wrong. Humanity’s situation was so desperate that
the Creator of the Universe Himself had to come and save us! Unfortunately, we humans have typically misjudged
the nature of our problem and have looked for a different kind of savior to
meet different needs than what God had in mind.
That reminded me of an experience I had with my grandson
this summer. My son had to cut his grass
and asked me if I could come down and keep his four year old occupied while he
got the job done. I was delighted, of
course! We played happily, until we
began a game of Go Fish. My grandson had
very definite ideas of how the game should be played, and his plan involved me
letting him win, primarily by allowing him to cheat. When I didn’t agree to his
plan, he got quite upset and announced that he was not going to play with me
anymore; then he hit me! When I told him
in no uncertain terms that hitting me was unacceptable, he decided he would
take this matter to his father.
In my grandson’s mind, he was going to tell on me and I
would be in trouble. He misjudged the
situation. He thought he had one issue,
but his father saw a bigger picture, and addressed a different problem, the
need to respect Grammie. The sad four-year-old was sent to Time Out to ponder
the fact that the trouble wasn’t outside of him, it was within.
Around the time of Jesus’ birth, the Jews were calling out
to their Father, telling him of their tribulations under the Romans. Their expectation was that he would hear
their cry and the Romans would be in trouble.
But God saw the bigger picture and addressed the deeper need; not
someone to save them from the Romans, but someone to save them from
themselves.
We all turn to God with our felt needs: More money, better
health, a nicer spouse, obedient children; and he reminds us that he has always
had the bigger picture in mind, and that our true need could not be met simply
by teaching us important moral lessons or rescuing us from our enemies or by
giving us the things we believe we need to make us happy.
He knew all along that our real need was for God himself to
come and enter an earthly mother’s womb; then, to be born and to perfectly live
an entire human life; and to die a human death, so that his perfect life and death
could be credited to us. To speak only of sweet Baby Jesus in a manger presents a disjointed story which can keep us from seeing the bigger picture. Because of our great need, God, our creator, had to be born, live and die so that we could be
reborn, into the family of God. That’s
the complete story of Christmas.
I never get tired of that story!
Love Always,
Bonnie
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