And it's not about brightly wrapped packages nestled under a beautiful tree, branches brimming with pine cones and ornaments, with twinkling lights and strings of popcorn and cranberries.
It's not about that last minute frantic trip to the mall, fighting crowds and snarling traffic, to search for the perfect gift for the family member who has everything. It's not about the promise of presents for kids who behave, delivered on a sleigh pulled by magical reindeer, by a rotund, jolly old man with a snow white beard and draped in a bright red suit.
It's not even about beloved family gathered around a long table packed with hams and turkeys and enough pies that an entire army could eat for a week.
No.
It's not all about making Merry.
Christmas...is about a baby born in a musty stable and wrapped in swaddling clothes. It's about heaven's best, God-man, coming down to mingle among sin, smelly animals and poop. To show each of us what love really looks like.
Christmas is about hope. It's about Jesus. It's about a perfect love that rights all wrongs, about a love that knows no bounds, a love that gives and never ends.
Christmas...because it's not all about making Merry.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7-11 NIV
Labels: baby Jesus, Christmas, gift, God, heaven's kiss, hope, Jesus, love, love knows no bounds, merry, salvation, season, stable
