I don’t know about you, but with all the demanding ‘to-dos’ surrounding this season, Christmas can easily fall into a yearly routine which does little more than mark the end of my calendar year and run up my credit card bill. Fortunately, I’ve been able to find, from time to time, those little gems of inspiration (a book, a quote, a sermon, a conversation, an experience, a thought) which renovate and rejuvenate my encounter with Christmas each year. I know in my mind that the reality of the event behind what we’re celebrating each Christmas is the most startling and scandalous affair to have ever happened on this dirty little planet. However, the commerce and routine of “Christmas” tend to smooth over this miraculous scandal of a King stepping from his throne and into the “dark, wet womb” (as Lucado puts it) of a Jewish peasant in the enemy occupied territory of 1st century Palestine.

So, let me suggest to you one of those little nuggets of inspiration which yearly wrenches me back into seeing the events of that first Christmas with new eyes.

Quite a few years back I picked up what looked like an attractive little coffee table book for Christmas. I knew and appreciated the three authors who had contributed to the inspirational writings beneath the front cover (Swindoll, Lucado, Colson). But it was more than I expected. This little book has become a favorite of mine—especially around the holidays. It’s filled with fresh perspectives of reality of Jesus’ birth. Let me give you one little excerpt of a writing by Max Lucado in this book, The Glory of Christmas:

Untethered by time, [God] sees us all. From the backwoods of Virginia to the business district of London; from the Vikings to the astronauts, from the cave-dwellers to the kings, form the hut-builders to the finger-pointers to the rock-stackers, he sees us. Vagabonds and ragamuffins all, he saw us before we were born.

And he loves what he sees. Flooded by emotion. Overcome by pride, the Starmaker turns to us, one by one, and says, “You are my child. I love you dearly. I’m aware that someday you’ll turn from me and walk away. But I want you to know, I’ve already provided a way back.”

And to prove it, he did something extraordinary.

Stepping from the throne, he removed his robe of light and wrapped himself in skin: pigmented, human skin. The light of the universe entered a dark, wet womb. He whom angels worship nestled himself in the placenta of a peasant, was birthed into the cold night, and then slept on cow’s hay.

Mary didn’t know whether to give him milk or give him praise, but she gave him both since he was, as near as she could figure, hungry and holy.

Joseph didn’t know whether to call him Junior or Father. But in the end called him Jesus, since that’s what the angel had said and since he didn’t have the faintest idea what to name a God he could cradle in his arms.

. . . Don’t you think . . . their heads tilted and their minds wondered, “What in the world are you doing, God?” Or, better phrased, “God, what are you doing in the world?”

“Can anything make me stop loving you?” God asks. “Watch me speak your language, sleep on your earth, and feel your hurts. Behold the maker of sight and sound as he sneezes, coughs, and blows his nose. You wonder if I understand how you feel? Look into the dancing eyes of the kid in Nazareth; that’s God walking to school. Ponder the toddler at Mary’s table; that’s God spilling his milk.

“You wonder how long my love will last? Find your answer on the splintered cross, on a craggy hill. That’s me you see up there, your maker, your God, nail-stabbed and bleeding. Covered in spit and sin-soaked.

“That’s your sin I’m feeling. That’s your death I’m dying. That’s your resurrection I’m living. That’s how much I love you.”

This excerpt by Max Lucado originally appeared in his book, In The Grip of Grace.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What have been “gems of inspiration” to you in the past which restore the glory and beauty of Christmas?
2. What part of Lucado’s above writing sticks out to you and challenges you to see the giving of God’s Son at Christmas anew?

This post originally appeared in Dec., 2006.