When I think about Christmas.

I've been thinking about Christmas and what it even means to have Christmas.

How many other births changed the course of eternity? How many other births literally changed the world? None. The answer is none. So for Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Christ. But, do we? In the middle of buying presents, going to parties, and baking cookies, do we actually celebrate the birth of Christ?

Would we do what the Kings did?
Would we do what the shepherds did?
Would we do what Mary did?
Or what Joseph did?

Would I leave the comfort of my home and follow a star - for months probably - to find something I wasn't 100% sure was there? Would I lay down my rod, staff and leave my flock on the hillside to see what a Heavenly being just told me had happened? Would I endure the scorn and the shame of those who didn't understand God and the fact that I was pregnant, without a husband, having conceived who I was calling the Son of God? Would I have done that? With beauty and with grace like Mary? Or would I have loved and brought up and cherished and called my own and adopted into my family a son, who was not mine?

As I think about Christmas, I think about gift giving and the ways that we, as Americans, or we as the world, celebrate this thing called Christmas - we've forgotten why we even have it. We have truly, to bring forth a cliche', we truly have forgotten the "Christ" in Christmas.

I want to be like those Kings - and do anything to get to Him. And fall on my face with the one thing, the most expensive thing I have, becauase it's the one way, the only way I know how to show the gratitude I have. I want to be like those shepherds and lave my livlihood behind because the Treasure is so great. I want to be like Mary and I want to endure the scorn and the shame of the world because they don't understhand what God is doing inside of me. And I want to be like Joseph - I want to accept, not only into my hosue, but also into my family a King. A King who I don't rightfully deserve. A King whom I have not earned.

A Kingdom and an eternity that is not righteously mine.

So when I think about Christmas, that's what I think about. Not presents, not trees, not cookies, not gift giving or receiving.

I think about Christ.

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given..." - Isaiah 9:6