“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, Who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
The lights on the tree are dark. Wrapping paper covers the floor. The room is silent. Another Christmas Day has ended. Another year is coming to an end. I close my eyes and consider what the past months have held. Tears, laughter, anxiety, and a few moments of calm. I try not to overanalyze what was. I try not to overthink what is to come. Overthinking is one of my downfalls. I carry regrets; I worry about the future. Both are a waste of time. I can’t change the past and while I can plan for the future, I can’t control what may come. Nothing is constant. Nothing is truly predictable. I can hope that I’ve learned from the mistakes. I can pray for my decisions in the future.
Pray.
I look again at the tree. Christmas. The day we remember the birth of our Savior. How long do we actually consider what that means? We focus briefly on the precious baby sleeping in a manger. We celebrate His birth every 25th of December. By the dawn of the 26th, we’ve forgotten what we celebrated. We pack the nativity figurines into their box and store it away for another year. The wrapping paper gets stuffed into trash bags and placed by the road. We move on. We again focus on the stuff of life and forget the truth of that miraculous birth.
Our Creator becoming one of His created. The King of the universe laying aside His robe of glory and putting on the rags of humanity, entering the earthly realm in water and blood, crying out His first breath and entrusting Himself to the care of one His own created.
We forget that tiny baby doesn’t stay in the manger. We forget that He grows into a child, running and laughing. We forget that He matures into a man, tempted in every way we are, yet never gives into it. He lives as one of us, becomes us.
He serves, washes the feet of His created. He heals and delivers, feeds and restores. He loves, is loved, is faithful, and yet betrayed. Beaten, mocked, rejected, crucified – dies the death of the created.
I close my eyes and consider all that He did for me so many years ago. He lived the life I could never live. Died the death I deserved – lived as me, died as me, to give me the life I do not deserve. His love for me poured out on that cross.
The cross that was fashioned from a tree he created, that cross that pierced the ground He had spoken into existence. Placed in that dark cave carved into the earth He designed – a tomb for the Creator of the universe.
Then life, breath, resurrection. Freedom. He defeated death, hell and the grave to give me freedom, to release me from my own captivity.
I close my eyes again and consider it all, pray that I take it so deeply into my heart that I can’t help but consider it daily, holding tightly to Him and His love for me, His sacrifice for me.
My Creator becoming the Created those many years ago, the Word becoming flesh that I may have life, the life He has always wanted for me. Let me live it and never forget.
“For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him.” Colossians 1:16
