The pageantry of Christmas focuses on the"little town of Bethlehem" and baby Jesus asleep in the cradle. Oh~ I can close my eyes and remember my children as babies. I remember the way they looked and smelled and their smiles. Such sweet memories I hold in my heart. What mother can't close her eyes and recall her own child asleep in the crib?
We delight in this time of the year thinking about our Saviour coming to earth as a little baby. But we can't let a baby in the manger be the only part of our understanding of Christ. Our Christianity does not orbit on a sleeping child. We can have a living~ vital relationship with a crucified ~ risen~ glorified Christ.
Samuel 7 ~ tells us about how the ark of the covenant , the very symbol of God's presence and power, had been put on the shelf so to speak in a remote village. Israel had left God behind in their hearts too. They no longer revered the Almighty God. He was forgotten.
How could the chosen people of God do that? Yet~how many of us show the same kind of memory lapse? Do we think of Jesus only at Christmas time? Do our thoughts of the King of all glory only involve Him as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes?
We just can't keep Jesus in the nativity scene. He longs to walk with us and talk with us and tell us we are His own. Israel eventually brought the art out of obscurity and into their everyday lives. So this Christmas let us bring Christ out of the cradle and into our everyday lives ~today and all through the year.
Deuteronomy 8:11 (KJV)
Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:
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