Here's a Christmas exercise you might want to try in your home. Quietly take baby Jesus out of your Nativity Scene and see how long it is before someone recognizes that Jesus is missing.
Might be quite some time.
Just an example of what's happening all over the world this time of year.
We've drummed Jesus out of the picture! Rat-a-tat! Rata-tat-tat-tat!
Joseph and Mary sit there quietly looking at an empty manger. The wise men still hold their gifts. The animals are milling around while the angel flutters above. All is calm and all is right.
The songs, the color and the food along with family fellowship carries the Christmas celebration doesn't it,
Is Jesus really that important to Christmas?
How many years has the real Jesus been missing from your Christmas and mine?
Yesterday at the orphanage I dared to take baby Jesus out of his manger and tenderly look at him, then I turned Him over, only to discover that ... surprise! Baby Jesus was made in China! How discouraging! I never realized that Jesus was plastic and made by a Chinese engineer somewhere in Hong Kong ... You see ... I always thought Jesus, the supreme man, was created by the supreme Creator, called to pay the supreme price resulting in salvation for us all. What a gift!!!
Fortunately to many of us, Christmas remains as His day, not ours. He gets the focus as He should. He gets the gifts. Above all He's not Chinese plastic but the living King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
