By R. Kevin Johnson
At last, it is here! A month of waiting has passed. We have heard prophetic voices tell of the coming of the Messiah. We have pondered his second coming. We have examined ourselves and considered our condition before God. The altar cloths and ministers’ stoles are now white. The candles on the wreaths that tell us of hope, peace, joy, and love are glowing brightly. A single candle in the middle of the wreath shines the light of Christ. A glorious celebration has begun. The promise is fulfilled! No more let sins and sorrows grow! Joy to the world! It is Christmas and the Redeemer has come.
Christmastide is a 12-day journey during which followers of Christ celebrate the Incarnation of God who, we are taught in John’s Gospel, “became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus, the Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, walked among us — fully man and fully God. Angels announced the birth. Shepherds marveled at him. From the beginning, he was a master teacher and in time he became the Master Teacher. He was the pride of his father and the joy of his Father. His life reflected the God of love, of justice and of reconciliation. He knew no sin and he showed mercy to the poor, the needy, the sick and the spiritually inept.
A lesson from the Epistles continues his story: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20). In these short verses, the passing from the cradle to the cross takes on particular significance.
A number of years ago, a pastor told me a story about his boyhood church. Every Christmas Eve, the men of the small country congregation made a jaunt into the wooded area behind their church to seek out the perfect tree to place in the sanctuary. When they found their prize, they chopped the tree down and returned it to the center of the sanctuary.
The tree was decorated with ornaments and lace. The obligatory angel topped the fir. For 12 days, the tree provided a fresh living reminder of the ever-living Christ whose presence within the body of the believers was evident. When Christmastide came to a close, the ornaments were put away and the tree was disassembled and hauled to a storage shed behind the church. Over time, the green of the tree faded and the needles fell to the ground until all that was left of the living reminder of the Savior was an ugly brown mass of branch and trunk.
During Lent, the men returned to the shed to retrieve the remainder of the tree. They shaved it to its trunk and smoothed the rough edges. Then the trunk of the tree was sawed in half, tied together in the shape of a cross, and returned to its place in the center of the sanctuary for the Holy Week services of the church.
What leaders of that small church understood well was the moral of a lesson that many of us forget this time of year:
Making crosses out of Christmas trees is what Christmas is all about. The tree begins as a symbol of the birth, the first coming of the Savior, and becomes a symbol of the promised second coming of the Messiah in a few short months — with implications for an eternity.
It is my prayer that, during this season of Christmas, we will celebrate the birth of the Savior with excitement and that we will look forward with anticipation to his second coming. May God give us grace to do so with much hope, peace, joy and love.