Martha's Christmas Thoughts
Posted by Martha & Greg Singleton , Sunday, December 18, 2011 4:05 AM
Exotic kings, bearing gifts. Unexpected, brilliant light from a star, moving low across a continent. And the night sky full of angels, singing songs no human ear has heard before or since. That’s the stuff a major event in the universe is made of.
That’s the part of the Christmas story that causes cease-fires, and brings nations and their rulers to their knees. That’s the event of the ages, and history and the future are changed forever because of it.
The glory of Heaven, folded and laid aside like a garment, exchanged for hungry shepherds, dusty and smelly from camping out with their animals for days on end,
a stable, with oxen and donkeys and dirt and earthy odors. That’s the stuff of poverty, all too ordinary even today, and though we try, not much has really changed it.
And so I hum along with my favorite carols on CD, and artfully arrange wise men and shepherds and angels and sheep in their gilded glory among the greenery and twinkle lights on my mantle, and plan for cookies and communion and family and alms, celebrating the event of the universe.
But from that box of straw where the King of all Ages slept in the form of a helpless baby, His road would lead him past a sea to a cup and a sword and a hill,
my hill, where He took my sin, my scorn, my disease and my shame, and died on a cross meant, from the beginning, for me.
And in the depth of my heart, far beyond even Christmas pageants and outreach and service and charity, I treasure the end of the story as much as the beginning. That’s the moment of redemption, and I am changed forever because of it.
