What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I have a favorite Christmas tradition, one I did with my daughters, my grandson, and now with my granddaughter this year. My first baby was born on Christmas Eve. Needless to say, Christmas has always been a very busy time for our family since then. On her second Christmas, she was one year old, and not only did I have to plan for Christmas but also her first birthday party. I'm sure you can all relate.
What changed our Christmas celebration trajectory was something that happened exactly six months after her birth on June 24, 1988. That was the day of my spiritual awakening. Some of you may know what that is like, some of you would call it a "born-again" experience. For me, it felt similar to my first romance. I felt joyful and light. I wanted to tell everyone about it, even though most other people I told did not understand. And I wanted to know everything about my new love, who was Jesus. So I looked in the best place where I could find out about Him, the Bible.
At the time, the knowledge I wanted most was how to be a good mom, since the whole mothering thing was new to me and I had no idea what I was doing.
I started at the beginning of the Bible and I found this instruction that was gold and I determined to follow it. It is from Deuteronomy 6:4-7:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
This made sense to me at the time, and now in retrospect, I realize how important it was to teach our children about God as they naturally go about their days. It is good also to bring your children to church for instructions, it is great if they have grandparents or aunts and uncles to also tell them about God.
But moms, it is of vital importance that YOU tell them yourself as you wake them up in the morning, as you put them to bed at night, as you drive them around. It is most impactful to them to lead by your own example of faith. Anyone one who had a toddler knows they model your behavior, the good and the bad.
So I took this seriously. And when Christmas came around, I was diligent to teach them the story of Christmas. My mother-in-law made this easy for me because she had given me a Nativity set with plastic people. I used these plastic people to tell the story of Jesus to my children.
• I told them about how the angel Gabriel came to Mary to announce to her that she would be blessed to be the mother of the Son of God. And Mary said Yes!
• I explained how the angel then came to Joseph in a dream to tell him that he should marry Mary and to name the baby Jesus. And Joseph said Yes!
• I used the donkey to show the long ride to Bethlehem and how Joseph knocked on doors asking, Any rooms?
• Finally Mary and Joseph had their baby Jesus in a barn and she put Jesus asleep in the hay.
• Also I told them the story of the shepherds at night in the fields watching their sheep and how the angels announced the news of great joy about the baby Jesus. And the shepherds said, Let's go see!
• Finally I told them about the wise men from far away who came to find and worship baby Jesus. They gave Him three gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh.
We used the plastic Nativity people each year to re-tell the story as we put together the manger scene and talked about God's love for us. I encouraged them to imagine the great and awesome God who created the heavens and earth, who knows the name of every star, yet also knows the numbers of hairs on your head, who created each type of animal, each blade of grass, each drop of water in the ocean, that God, loved us so much He became human to live among us.
Jesus could have come any TIME He wanted. He could have come in 2023 and been a Tik-Tok influencer in the age of the internet and air planes and indoor plumbing. How easy it would have been for Him to spread His message and become famous!
But instead the time He chose was when the best mode of travel was a donkey and the best message delivery system was to speak from the top of a hill.
Jesus could have come any WAY He wanted. He could have come as the son of a powerful king, or the son of a wealthy and honored rabbi. He could have come like the angels did, out of the sky, like a mighty warrior dressed in blazing glory.
But instead, He chose a poor young girl, allowed her to travel far away from family and friends, to give birth in a barn surrounded by animals. Jesus came as a baby, and we all know what that means, right? He could not feed Himself, dress Himself, burp Himself or clean Himself. Plus there was no mom there for Mary, to remind her, "don't forget to support his head!" Or to say, "let me come over for the first time and show you how to give him a bath." Jesus allowed Himself to be helpless and trusted a teenage girl with His life.
Why in the world did Jesus do that?
Because He loves us. Because it was important for Him to relate to us. For Jesus to understand what it was like to be human by becoming one of us. For Him to be worthy for the sacrifice He would be making later on our behalf.
And for us to have the option of faith. We choose to believe Him. Or not. He wants our love and He invites us, but He will not force us.
Now the rest of the traditions are fun too and we enjoy them, but for our family, we were so busy we forgot to tell our children about Santa Claus. So we just never did.
But honestly I do have this one problem with the way we use Santa to keep our children from going over the deep end in all the Christmas excitement. We tell them Santa comes ONLY for the GOOD little girls and boys. That he sees them when they are sleeping, knows when they're awake. He knows if they have been bad or good. And I get it, moms, no judgment from me! I am down for "whatever works".
Jesus was just the opposite. Jesus not only came to show us all what God was really like. He came to all BAD girls and boys. And not to give us coal in our Christmas stockings. No, rather He came to provide us with forgiveness and to reconcile and restore our relationship with God. And honestly, we are ALL bad girls and boys.
Just to prove the point, let me ask:
Who of you have never, in your life, done anything wrong? Anything that violates your OWN moral code of conduct? Could you claim you are perfectly good?
No?
Me neither. Matter of fact, if you give me 20 minutes I will say or do something wrong. So I'd better wrap this up then.
Jesus came not only to live with us but also to pay the debt for all the things we did wrong. Not to look the other way, mind you and say to us, "that's ok sweetheart, you do you."
No, He paid the price instead of us so that we could be with a holy God in heaven forever and empower us to live better while we are here.
Click here for the original Christmas story in a translation that will be easy for your young child to understand. If you need to hear it again or hear it for the first time, please read it. Think about it. Be like the most famous mom in history, Mary of Nazareth, and treasure it in your heart.
I encourage you this Christmas to share with your children the most miraculous story ever told, how God loved you and your children so much that He left the glory of paradise to be a baby and grow up, as an average child, just like the little one you love at home. The awesome God in a tiny baby's body. What is a better story than that?
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Here's a question for you.
It is interesting to read how different people reacted to the birth of Jesus. Mary and Joseph both said YES to the angel despite the hardships they would encounter. The shepherds were excited and came to see Jesus. The wise men brought gifts to honor and worship Jesus.
But King Herod tried to find Jesus to murder Him. The gospel of Matthew 2:16 tells us: "Herod realized that the Wise Men had tricked him. So he became very angry. He gave orders about Bethlehem and the area around it. He ordered all the boys two years old and under to be killed. This agreed with the time when the Wise Men had seen the star."
How do you react to the story of Jesus' birth?
• Excited and joyful
• Grateful
• Worshipful
• Indifferent
• Skeptical
• Offended
• Hostile
