Christmas time is coming! Hang the greens. Put the ornaments on the tree. String the lights. Mail the Christmas cards. Buy the presents.
Wait! Did I forget something? Is that everything? I feel like I’m forgetting something. What could it be?
I look around the room and notice a box under a table. I bend down and pull it out. It’s the manger scene. We forgot to put out the manger scene. I take out the pieces one by one: the shepherds, the angels, the animals, Joseph, Mary, and the manger.
I keep reaching down into the box. Where is Jesus? How can you have a manger scene without Jesus? Then I realize what I had truly had been missing. How can you have Christmas without Jesus?
I stop and pray to God and ask him to forgive me for my carelessness. In the midst of the hustle and bustle, I had forgotten what it is all about. I start to take out all the paper wrappings to find Jesus. I became like a kid opening presents on Christmas day. I had to find Jesus!
Finally, there was something small, wrapped – as if in swaddling clothes. I carefully unwrap the tiny baby statue and hold it in my hand. Tears came to my eyes as I realize what God had done. He came from the glories of a perfect place with no tears, pain, or sorrow. He did not come as a mighty prince born in a palace. He came as a normal, ordinary, poor, homeless, infant. Not laid in a bed made of gold, but put in a feeding trough. Not born with the announcement of trumpets, but announced only to some shepherds in a field.
Here I was in a nice warm home with many presents and more than I really needed. I was so wrapped up with my life that I forgot that he gave up His for me. I kneel down and place the tiny statue in the manger. I thank God, my heavenly Father, for loving me so much. I thank Jesus, my Savior, for living a human life and dying for my sins. I thank the Holy Spirit, my guide, for helping me to see what it is all about.
Merry Christmas and remember Jesus is THE reason for the season.