A Baby Changes Everything

Teenage girl

Much too young

Unprepared for what's to come

A baby changes everything.

The teenage girl in the verse from Faith Hill's song could live in Boston...or Toronto...or Brantford (see https://plus.google.com/107939813175034837761/about?gl=ca&hl=en).    A young woman, heavy with child, scorned by her family, lonely, scared, confused, nowhere to go.  A baby changes everything.

Turn the clock back over 2000 years.  A teenage girl in Bethlehem found herself pregnant.  Her fiance wondered about the baby's paternity, planning to send her away secretly.  Her future in-laws could have carried out a "mercy killing" for her adultery.  Her community shunned her.  A baby changes everything.

The young girl visited her much older, pre-menopausal age cousin, also pregnant with child.  Upon the occasion, her cousin felt her own baby move in her womb.  "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb," she declared, soothing words for a girl who was much too young.

About to give birth, she undertook a long journey on a donkey, her fiance by her side.  Near Bethlehem, she found herself out on the street, no room at the inn.  In a manger, under a brilliant star, she lay down on the hay, and there, among the oxen and lambs, she gave birth.  A baby changes everything.

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My Favourite Christmas Decoration

My Mom loves Christmas.  She has always done an excellent job decorating her house to celebrate the season.  When I was growing up, Mom would put up a large artificial tree in the living room (later rec room).  She would put a medium sized silver tree (circa 1960's) on top of the grand piano. She would hang our monogrammed red and white stockings above the fireplace.  She wrapped garland around the staircase leading up to the bedrooms.  She hung a large wreath on our front door.

But my favourite Christmas decoration was the manger scene that sat on our television set.  It came in a rectangular box which said MADE IN ITALY on the bottom.  The roof folded up to fit inside the box as did the stable.  Plastic figurines lay under the roof.  Mom would set up the stable, open up the roof to go on top, and place the figurines carefully in their spots.  Mary and Joseph sat on either side of baby Jesus, sleeping on what looked like a tiny stool lined with hay.  The donkey, ox and lamb gazed at the baby Jesus from a distance. The three wise men, their gifts in their hands, waited in a single file line to see the newborn king. The angel hung from a nail at the peak of the roof.  And the best part of all was the miniature light bulb poking through the back of the stable to serve as the Star over Bethlehem.  

There was something so peaceful about that creche.  When Rob and I bought our house we tried to find a nativity scene just like it, but to no avail.  It was one of a kind.  For more information, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativity_scene.

Dancing around Christmas

Kirk Cameron, the actor who starred in "Fireproof", has a new movie out called "Saving Christmas". I'd like to see it but it isn't playing in Brantford.  It's pretty sad when I can watch "Dumb and Dumber To", but not "Saving Christmas", even though the Christmas season is approaching.

"Saving Christmas" is about getting back to the true meaning of Christmas.  Remember the old TV show special "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965)?  Charlie Brown, frustrated with the materialism of Christmas, directs a Christmas pageant.  But he feels like he's failed when the centrepiece for the whole play is a sad little evergreen tree with a bit of tinsel draped over it.

It is Linus who reminds him about the true meaning of Christmas.  A spotlight shines on Linus who, holding his blue "companion" blanket, takes the stage.  His speech opens with the words:  "And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night." A hush falls over the audience as we ponder Linus' message, that a baby, born in a lowly manger, has come into the world to save us.

How could we, like Charlie Brown, get it so wrong?  The word is CHRISTmas.  We should celebrate Christ.  And yet we dance around the word the way children danced around the forlorn fir tree. We don't even call it Christmas anymore.  The stores advertise "Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings".  Or even "Happy Hannukah" which doesn't fall at the same time as Christmas and isn't even the biggest holiday of the Jewish calendar.  To counter the political correctness campaign, I make a point of saying "Merry Christmas" as loudly and as often as I can.

I'm just as guilty as the next person, however, about turning Christmas into an assembly line of decorating the house, writing Christmas cards, baking dozens of cookies, shopping shoulder-to-shoulder at the mall, wrapping endless gifts, stuffing stockings, stuffing the bird and stuffing my face.

How can I strip it back to its original meaning, the way Linus did?  I need to return to Linus' text, Luke 2: 8.  Then I will feel His presence -- the true meaning of Christmas.  To listen to Linus' speech, click here:  http://bibleornot.org/the-true-meaning-of-christmas-linus-speech/

https://shelaughswhileshegoes.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/what-is-christmas-all-about-linus/