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| my favorite tree ornament (photo courtesy of my sister) |
Christmas. Winter. Twinkling lights. Cozy blankets. Hot chocolate. Wishing for snow. :)
Over the last few years, I’ve had less of an emphasis on the externals of Christmas—the tree lights, the decorations…Campus itself does decorate (one of my favorite things to do between Thanksgiving Break and Finals Week was to walk back to the dorms from the library at night and admire all the lights :) ), but I myself did not have the chance to decorate like that. (Okay, so there was the dorm-door decorating contest…but I was writing a 90-page script at the time. Enough said.) The Christmas-carols-and-decorations part of Christmas only lasted the week or so I was home before Christmas—and it made me stop and think, because even during those weeks between Thanksgiving Break and Finals Week, Christmas was in my heart and mind.
I’ve also had an increased emphasis on Easter…The Campus sunrise service—I’ll definitely miss that next year! Mom’s exclamations about our church’s Good Friday service as well as the Easter service—I’m definitely looking forward to being here this time! The everyday importance of the message of the cross.
Christmas and Easter are intertwined…Jesus was born to die. Without Easter, Christmas would not matter; and without Christmas, Easter would not have happened. Christmas happens so that the cross happens so that Easter morning happens.
I’ve been meditating on that a lot lately. Yes I’ve been excited to help put up the tree this year and decorate my room, and I smiled when a few snow flurries fell last week, and I love the fleece blanket I’m wrapped in, and I enjoy the nativity scenes we have set up all around…and it reminds me to be grateful.
Because—Jesus humbled Himself ~
~leaving heaven
~being born and living among sinful men
~discipling a dozen men who never comprehended His plan while He taught
~letting Himself be betrayed…denied…unfairly tried…beaten…hung on a cross.
Then He arose! And He patiently explained it all again to those disciples who eventually spread that message across the world.
Every day I shake my fist at God—I’m selfish, proud, full of complaining thoughts and attitudes—and yet I will never feel the wrath of God. I am a sinner; there is no righteousness in me; but I have personally accepted His sacrifice on the cross and now Jesus clothes me with His righteousness. He died so that I may truly live!
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th’angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”
~Charles Wesley
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