Cold, Frankincense and Brrrrrr!!!!! These are the symbols of Christmas 2013!

Symbols summarize the season.

Clean straw covering the floor and pure white wrapping around a fat-cheeked baby who is looking lovingly up toward his mommy.

A baby bed constructed in an “X”-shaped style which is holding that cuddly bundle.

Curious farm animals standing a respectable distance away, wistfully observing the awe-stricken young parents.

Crystal-clear night skies peppered with glistening stars where one in particular outshines them all with its long, dagger-shaped beams pointing like a Google-map marker to the exact location in the back of the crowded hotel.

Three wise men with their lavish, eastern dignitary wardrobes. Each bowing before the small, happy little boy seated on his mom’s lap, opening a gift.
• Gold, for He is a king
• Frankincense, for He is both the object of worship and the Priest who serves
• Myrrh, for His destiny is His tomb

Symbols succinctly summarize the season.

But the message is not the symbols. He would be born of a woman and cradled like every loved infant born among man. He needed a crib in which He could lie. He would die like a man, but not of natural causes and not in some unfortunate accident of fate. Rather, He would succumb to the death of a despised and hated criminal. The wooden crib that comforted His infant body would soon be exchanged for a cruel rugged cross that would inflict incomparable pain on that very same flesh.

His crib and His cross would live as the “brand” of His earthly life. But the message was not founded on a crib nor hung to a cross. His message was the very life HE lived and the real death that He died. HE was the message! HE was the story that lived to be told. HE was the symbol that summarized the story.

It’s not about the Crib and not about the Cross, but all about the Christ—He who was born to lay in a crib and lived to die on a cross. The story of Christmas is all about Him! He alone is the symbol of Christmas.

Oh come, let us worship HIM!

See you Sunday, Church, as the children lead us in celebrating the Savior!

Pastor Tom