The trees and the garland too make me marvel for hours. Tiny little manger scenes and the vintage photos of Santa Claus make our homes warm with the spirit of the season.
Christmas music tickles my ears and candy cane candles tickle my nose.
There are parties with the voices of those I love dear filling my home.
Candlelit Christmas Eve services with the sound of worship filling my heart.
All of this and more make up what is great about Christmas-but it’s not what is Christmas.
To me Christmas is wrapping up this big old gift of a Savior and handing him to someone else for them to know and love and enjoy.
What good is our precious gift if we keep Him to ourselves? True, he might minister to us. We might grow our relationship with him until our hearts feel like they might burst out of our chest.
But when they do get so full of Him and when our hearts do indeed beat right out of our chest, that’s when we will begin to give Him away. That’s when we know that there’s got to be something more and the only way we will ever find out what more is – is to give it away.
When my little’s gave shoes to the homeless last Sunday, they were doing more than dressing the soles of feet.
They were putting clothes and shoes on the embodiment of Christ in us so that He might find His way into the hearts of others through that shoebox and dress the souls of men and women as well as the sole of their feet.
He longs to clothe us in His righteousness. What better way to do that than to introduce Him with a warm pair of shoes for the winter?
Last week it was a shoebox, but tomorrow or next week or next year there will likely be another opportunity. There will always be some kind of opportunity to wrap Jesus up in a box and hand him ever so gently to another precious heart with the prayer that they too, will learn to treasure Him and love Him and know Him like you do.
That’s Christmas not just in December but all year long.
That’s more than a day set aside to celebrate Jesus’s birth. It’s a way of life to celebrate why He came.
And when we get to share Him with others? That’s the best gift of all to give away.
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