Today we not only turn the page to a new day and new month, but also a new year. If you are reading this, you have been given the gift of life and time once more.

What will you do with this gift?

Each of us will choose how we spend it and sometimes forget that how much we are given is unknown to us.

It can be easy for us to complain about time. Some say they have too much time on their hands while others say they never have enough time to do all they want to do. I get that! I have experienced both at one time or another, but more of the latter.

I have reached the conclusion that even though there are “must do” things in every day whether it is work, household chores, or other assignments I have agreed to, I am still the one who is to steward the time. I make many choices about what my days and weeks look like. Many of the “have to do” things reflect my priorities, my values, my preferences, and my passions.

They also reflect consequences of other choices I have made. What kind? What I chose to do with education and how that impacts the choice of my work and even location. Yes, things can happen outside of my choices. There are forces outside of my control that act on me. I can become ill through no fault of my own, but I can also become ill because I did not steward my physical health by good choices about sleep, food, and exercise.

Each day we receive a blank page. What am I writing on it? What will you write on yours?

What we write each day weaves many threads together that becomes ‘our’ story. That is likely most evident in a new year when we set goals for the year ahead, resolutions for what we want to do differently in order to be different.

What will you write?

The key to that answer is whether we recognize we are each a part of a much larger story, God’s story. It can be easy to forget that. We can get caught up with the notion that the story is about us rather than remember He has created each of us to be a part of a much larger story than we could ever create and it is His story.

Even so, He gives us a lot of leverage in how our part of it will play out no matter what our role may be.

A long time ago I heard a graduation speaker share this:

“If you love life, do not waste time because time is what life is made of and what you are is God’s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God.”

The memory of that statement has remained etched in my mind. When I was younger, I thought I needed to fill up my days to not waste time. Now I recognize there are many ways to fill up a day and the speaker didn’t mean to cram each day’s schedule to the brim. I believe he meant that each day should count whether I was working, appreciating the beauty around me and being in touch with the One who created it, or handling the duties that might come to me as a wife and mother.

I don’t take time for granted.

So, today as we turn the page on another day, month, and year, what will you choose?

Will you gain new insights in the role the Lord has invited you to play in His story?

Will you value your role whether it seems large or small?

Just remember. Each day you are given the opportunity to add a few lines to His story. He loved you that much and invited you to create with Him and to therefore bring honor and glory to Him about all others.

What will you write?

And so it has come…

Whether you have a large Christmas tree, a small one, or none at all, Christmas has still come.

Whether you have heaps of gifts, just a few gifts, or none at all to unwrap, Christmas has still come.

Whether you are filled with joy, or alone and grieving, Christmas has still come.

The best gift needed no tree, but died on one so you can receive the gift of eternal life with Him.

He simply loved you that much! It had nothing to do with who you were or where you were from, whether you were rich or poor, educated or illiterate.

On this day we celebrate the birth of Jesus,

He brings you the gift of new life in Him, with Him. He wants to dwell in your heart and walk with you through life’s ups and downs. All He asks is that you open your heart and receive Him.

When you are given a gift, your part is to open and receive it.

I have so much enjoyed sharing His story with you these last few weeks. I pray the Lord allowed you to sense Him in a special way.

Merry Christmas! Shalom!

Today I come to the end of this nine part Christmas series using as a structure the letters of the word Christmas and the lyrics from the song C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S made famous by country music legend, Jim Reeves some years ago. I hope a closer look at the meanings beyond the words of the lyrics have resulted in deeper reflections about the characters, places, and events of the story we know so well.

This letter “S” has many words associated with the Christmas season. I wonder how many and which ones you might list. Here is my list: Savior, salvation, snowflakes, sleigh, sled, skating, shopping, scarf, season’s greetings, sleigh bells, Saint Nicholas, Santa’s elves, Scrooge, shepherd, stocking, and Santa Claus.

The lyric in the song for the second S in the song’s title is “means shepherds came”.

I am struck each time I read Luke’s account of the birth of Christ of the significance that the announcement of the angels of the birth of Jesus came first to the shepherds, the ordinary folks. In Luke 2, the seemingly ‘least likely’ are chosen. They are chosen to be the first noted visitors of Jesus after His birth.

Even though sheep might be a livelihood for some, those left to actually tend the sheep were often the youngest and weakest family members (Recall how David who would become King was the youngest of his brothers.) who had few skills for anything else. This might mean that children, older men no longer in their prime, or even perhaps older women would compose the group.

It seems odd to me that the youngest and weakest were given such a difficult and dangerous job. Shepherds were exposed to extremes of heat and cold. Supplies for their own welfare were few and needed to be stewarded and protected. Shepherds also needed to be very watchful and on guard at all times to protect the sheep from robbers, predators, and the terrain itself, which was often rocky.

They also needed to seek out any sheep that were lost after wandering away and find food for the flock later in the fall and winter when none was available. A shepherd provided for what the sheep needed right now, whatever that was.

The fields where the shepherds heard the angelic host adjoined Bethlehem. Many of the shepherds may have cared for the very lambs that would be offered as a sacrifice in the temple. Now they would kneel at the manger of the Good Shepherd who would be sacrificed.

I envision the shepherds outside Bethlehem as a group that is both older and younger than images of the scene might depict. Possibly an older woman would have been in the mix as well. I see them with eyes open and on the alert to watch over the sheep and lambs in their charge. What a heart they had for their charges.

At the time of Jesus birth, we see the least likely are chosen, a pattern that follows Him all the way to Calvary. His disciples were not well-educated men and some had dubious reputations. A tax collector was among them, one who was often most despised, along with poor fishermen.

The other message that breaks into my awareness is the shepherds are accorded the honor of first seeing the one that would also be called “the good shepherd”. The Good Shepherd would be as fierce and protective, as loving and as much of a provider as those who gazed upon the manger. He would also be described by John the Baptist in John 1:29 as “the Lamb of God”.

As you edge closer to the celebration of the birth of Jesus, pause and consider Him as the One who shepherds you with the most tender, fierce love you can imagine. If you have invited Him into your heart and you are His, you can rest in peace when you lay down to sleep because He is always on watch caring for you. You can rest in confidence He will be there when you awaken and no matter where you are in your journey, He will never leave or forsake you. He even died for you.

John records the words of Jesus defining Himself in confirmation of those words in John 10:11 (ESV):

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

In the Message translation of John 10:11, the sentence reads:

“I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary.”

He simply loves us, the ordinary, that much.

Of all the gifts you may open this Christmas, none can compare with Jesus.

As I come to the “A” in the word Christmas using the word structure from the song made famous by Jim Reeves (C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S), there are not so many Christmas related words. The short list I have includes angel, antlers, artificial tree, and advent. Perhaps there are more, but not on my radar screen.

In the song the “A” includes this line “A is all He stands for”. Each letter in the song has referred to some aspect of the Bethlehem story of the Christ child. With this line, the focus is the theme of who this baby in the manger really is. It may beg the question of what is it He stands for as well.

One of the ways to consider who He is and all He stands for is to consider the names used for Him. What a list it is! Let me list some of the words/terms used for Jesus: the Son, the Babe, the Son of God, I AM, the Alpha and Omega, eternal life, the Word, son of David, a man of sorrows, Savior, the Christ, Lord Jesus, the lamb of God, the Bridegroom, the Way, the Vine, the true Bread from heaven, the Light, the Morning Star, the Rock, the Redeemer, a sure foundation, the last Adam, the Holy One of Israel, and Prince of Peace. This partial list would be longer as well if we included all the names of God.

Our challenge is to acknowledge our vocabulary is inadequate to fully express who He is and what He is and represents. Finite humans have tried for thousands of years in words and songs to communicate this One who changed the world forever at the first Advent and continues to influence its course and the lives of those who believe.

His Second Advent will expand our sense of Him even more.

For so many reasons such as these, when I think of the line in the song that focuses on “A” I believe it stands for complete. Any careful reading of the gospels and epistles provide confirmation of that choice of word. When I tease out a few of the synonyms for the word, complete, it rounds out what I seek to convey. Synonyms like total, entire, full, greatest, maximum, the sum total of, and everything flesh out that word.

Paul’s words in Colossians 1:19 (ESV) speak to that:

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”

Commentators note the word fullness (complete) was used by Paul to remind the Colossians that there was nothing lacking in Christ because the fullness of deity, power, and grace are His. It is clear that only One who was complete could accomplish the will of the Father to bring reconciliation, redemption, and salvation to the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve (you and me). They (we) were forever tainted with the stain of the forbidden fruit that cast them out of the Garden of Eden and into the darkness of their fallenness that was passed on to us all.

Nothing mankind could do could bring about what was needed, no sacrifice we could offer would pay the debt charged to us except One who was already complete, perfect in total. The staggering truth is that once we accept this Babe in the manger, this Jesus, and soon coming King, He makes us complete in Him, through Him, and by Him. Because of Him, His shed blood and perfect sacrifice, His triumph over death and hell, and return to life, our permanent debt (as Jerry Bridges would say) is now paid in full once and forever.

As my writer friend, Susan Chamberlain Shipe recently wrote looking at Luke’s description of Jesus, “Doctor Luke researched, learned, investigated. He found Jesus Christ to be full and complete…”

As we gather this Christmas and consider the story of the birth of Christ and “all He stands for”, let us never cease to be grateful that His love and grace offers to make us complete in Him. He is our “all in all.”

As Paul says in Ephesians 11:36 (ESV):

“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

As I continue my journey through the letters of the Christmas song, C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S, I arrive today at the letter “M”. A Christmas vocabulary list for this letter will include: merry, mistletoe, mittens, myrrh, mince pie, Merry Christmas, and manger (the word the song references).

I know most of us are struck by the place and surroundings for the birth of Jesus, but it also provides additional symbolism. A manger is a long open box or trough for horses or cattle to eat from. We picture one such as that in the picture above, but wood was not abundant in that area of the world so it would likely resemble an authentic one that looked like the one pictured at the bottom of this post. That seems inauspicious indeed for Jesus, the Messiah, and the Son of God. It certainly speaks to meekness, lowliness, simple, modest, unostentatious, poor, undistinguished, and humble.

To be humble is a struggle and not always even revered in modern times as valuable, but in Jesus we see immediately a disdain for riches, pomp, and worldly status. He epitomizes humility in showing a low estimate of His own importance, rank, or position. He chose (with his Father) to lay aside his place next to the Father in heaven and arrived in human form in the lowliest of places and circumstance.

Do we even consider how great a love was shown to give all of that up even before we get to the agony of the cross, the betrayal of disciples, and the harangue of the Pharisees?

When I consider words that are synonymous with humble, it fleshes out an extended awareness of what that means when we apply it to this Jesus of the manger in Bethlehem. Some synonyms to consider would be: courteous, gentle, polite, respectful, soft-spoken, content, deferential, demure, submissive, and reverential.

How could He be all these?

One reason is that He did not esteem Himself to be above his Father.

Jesus had been with his Father always…before the foundation of the world, at Creation and ever afterward…He knew Him intimately and submitted to and joined the grand plan to reconnect and reconcile with mankind after the fall in the Garden of Eden. He honored his Father and though equal to his Father in the Trinity, He did not place Himself above his Father. I love the way The Message reads Paul’s words about this in Philippians 2:6 (MSG):

“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”

Wow! What a challenge from Paul to each of us!!

Only through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit can we hope to attempt even a little of His likeness in this.

There is one other symbolic piece of this manger I would ask you to consider. God never wastes any opportunity to enrich what He wants us to see if we look a little closer.

A manger was a place for feeding and sustenance. That night in Bethlehem so long ago when Jesus was carefully laid there, it was as well. He was “food and sustenance” for any and all of us who would believe. Note John 6:35 (ESV):

“Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

The manger, the trough, that had held food for horses and cattle, now held a child, a Savior, who would feed and nourish us all.

Yes, there was the miracle of feeding of the five thousand and then four thousand at another time. That was food and sustenance for the physical bodies of those who were seeking and following Him, but to be the “bread of life” was to offer us something so much more. It gave us real life! It gave us life eternal! It fed us with nourishment that would help our hearts and spirits to withstand living in this fallen world until He returns to take us with Him.

Looking back at the original purpose for the manger is to be aware the cattle and horses would need to bend their heads (humble) to eat and gain nourishment. We, too, need to bend our heads and not esteem ourselves too highly, to be humble to eat from this precious “bread of life.”

See how Matthew so beautifully describes what that looks like in Matthew 11: 29-30 (MSG):

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

During this holy season that is often too busy, He invites us to the manger to humble ourselves, to feed on Him, to eat from His table in His Word, to learn of Him and “the unforced rhythms of grace.”

He invites us to “keep company with” Him!