Two weeks before Thanksgiving, I drove over to my daughter's house for a short visit. As I pulled up, I noticed that their neighbor across the street already had Christmas decorations in their yard! I thought to myself that they must have been hanging around Hobby Lobby too long...they've had Christmas decorations out since June. Perhaps her neighbors just couldn't wait any longer -- or maybe they were just stir crazy due to covid. Who knows...it just seemed so early to me. I still had a turkey to roast.
Walking up to the house I knocked and the door opened with my three year old granddaughter beaming with excitement like I've never seen before! "Gragga!" (She can't say Granna yet) "Gragga! It's Christmas time!!" And she jumped out the door pointing to the house across the street. Puzzled, I looked at my daughter and she said, "Yes, we've already been out for a drive looking at Christmas lights. You'd be surprised how many people have them up already." Huh?! But it's not even Thanksgiving yet!
Now I love Christmas lights too! I've read that Germans started the tradition of Christmas trees and candles to light them. The evergreen trees symbolized renewal and a continuance of life (a Christian principle) and the candles represented Christ, the Light of the world! I wonder how many people know that today?
I just love lights period...I've loved them since I was very young. It seems to me that when I was younger, lights were flashier and more colorful. There used to be more neon lights...for hotels, restaurants, shoe stores, stores of all kinds. The arm of a cowboy would magically wave in lights. As a young teenager, I used to sit in the dark at my grandparent's kitchen table and look out at the highway lights a half mile away. The Holiday Inn sign was my favorite with it's running yellow lights. But the whole highway was aglow with businesses and traffic lighting the darkness. Light invades the darkness but darkness can never overcome the Light...ever. All lights represent Christ to me.
Two thousand years ago, the Light of the world came to earth as our Savior to shatter the darkness so that we didn't have to live in it any longer. It's this time of year when Christians around the world recognize His earthly arrival in the little town of Bethlehem. In the fall of 2017, my husband and I visited that very city.
A trip to Israel was on my husband's bucket list...not mine. My faith was not dependent on seeing the Holy Lands. I did not want to go. I was scared to go. But let me tell you friends, we saw some amazing sights. Places and things I'll never forget. I even read the scriptures with a different set of eyes now.
We had a wonderful guide named Mike Rogoff. He wrote the section on Jerusalem for Fodor's Travel Essential Israel. He knew scripture and he brought it to life as we toured.
Mike shared that there were caves in the hillsides around Bethlehem that were used as stables. Since the second century, tradition holds that Jesus was born in one such cave. Since Bethlehem was only a short distance from Jerusalem, the caves were used as birthing stables for sacrificial lambs to be offered in the temple. They wrapped the legs of the newborn lambs with strips of cloth to keep them from falling and cutting themselves against the rocks. They had to be spotless and without blemish. I personally don't believe it was a coincidence that there was no room at the inn for this precious expectant mother.
God knew exactly what He was doing. I believe that Jesus, our sacrificial lamb, was precisely in the place where he was supposed to be born -- a stable where other sacrificial lambs were born. His mother Mary wrapped him in strips of cloth that would have been readily available in such a place. (Luke 2:7, Lev 4:32 and I Peter 1:17-25)
In this picture, our guide, Mike, is standing beside a feeding trough or manger. (It was taken at Megiddo and dated back to the 9th century -- the time of King Ahab!) Although the end is broken off, it was sized for feeding donkeys and horses. Just such a manger, but a smaller version, would have been used to feed sheep -- the perfect size in which to lay the baby Jesus! Cool, huh?!
Jesus came to earth to live as we live. He gets it. He was a son, a brother, a teacher, a healer... He was tempted, felt hunger, loneliness, betrayal, pain and ultimately death. But He overcame death to live for you and me that we might have His light and life through eternity. What kind of love is that? Only the love of a Savior.
Love till next time,
Lanna
For your consideration: Luke 1:26 through Luke 2:21, Isaiah 7:14, Isaiah 9:6-7
John 1:1-14, John 8:12, John 12:46, Matt. 5:14-16 and I John 1:5-7
