This picture is from the movie The Nativity Story. I am always a bit reluctant to promote movies like this. I won't let my children watch it right now because I want the imagines they gain from reading the story to be their own, NOT something they gained from watching someone else's interpretation. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this movie and this picture was one of my favorite scenes. A bit clean for me though. The Incarnation was not clean. Period. Mary gave BIRTH in a barn. Have any of you given birth? I've given birth at home so I have seen how truly messy it can be. Hospital births are covered by the paper blanket. You can't see the mess most of the time. But birth is messy. My favorite song about the nativity was written by Andrew Peterson from his album, Behold the Lamb.
If you want to listen to the whole album of Andrew Peterson, you can find Behold The Lamb at this site. It will be a wonderful addition to your holiday music. We love this album so much that it's only holiday music that gets played all the year through. If you have a chance to see the concert in person, it's even better in person.
Why start a blog post about the Nativity? That is Christmas. Christmas is not giving gifts. It's about the Gift given to us. Christmas is not about hanging decorations and Christmas lights. It's about the Light of the World. There would be no Christmas as we know it without the Incarnation. The coming of Jesus gives us freedom from sin. When we accept Him as Savior and Lord of our lives. When we accept His sacrifice for us on the Cross. When He calls us to Him, then there is reason to celebrate the Incarnation, and not just one day a year. If we had no Christmas gifts, no decoration, no holiday music, no movies, no parties, no vast Christmas dinners and feast, no Christmas trees, or the whole of what the American Christmas has become. . .we'd still have the Incarnation.
Tomorrow I am going to focus on our holidays and how we focus on the Incarnation. We do still celebrate with gift giving on December 25th. To be honest, we haven't figured out a way to get away from what we've known all our lives. But it is vastly scaled down, especially for what I grew up knowing. Jesus is our Reason for celebrating. Our children know that. We celebrate the Incarnation through the month so that when we get to December 25th, we just enjoy the day. It's almost like another Thanksgiving celebration with some gift giving mixed in. I hope you will enjoy these posts. I hope you will consider some changes in your own celebrations.
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