“It’s so beautiful!” Shouted my daughter looking at the wall of our living room.
“What’s beautiful, sweetheart?… Oh, you mean the vows?” I clarified as I spotted my daughter staring at our wedding vows that we had mounted there years ago.
“The frame, mommy! It’s so shiny.” She honestly replied.
Missing the essence of Christmas is just like staring at a Picasso and praising its frame.
It’s a global issue, celebrating the frame of Christmas rather than the Christmas Canvas itself. Our Christmas joy is often measured in the gifts, carbs, family relations and home decorations. When our hoard of these is small, it typically results in severe depression.
If we could only shift our source of JOY to the painting itself.
What’s the makeup of the Christmas canvas?
The Creator of the universe willing to put on the face of a man. (My limited brain can’t even fathom that depth of love and humility from my Creator.)
Here are a few brush strokes depicting the beauty of Jesus coming down to our size…
To bring us comfort when we ache. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” Hebrews 4:15
To show us what real grace looks like. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
To take up our punishment, when we were clueless we even needed saving from it. “…the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
To give us real joy that surpasses human understanding. “You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:8-9
… Merely scratching the surface.
My goal is not to be your Grinch, stealing the many ways you celebrate Christmas. May we give ourselves the freedom to enclose the Christmas Canvas with an ornate frame of laughter, gift-exchanges, delicious goods, carols… togetherness; just do NOT forget it was never about the frame in the first place.
May our JOY be sourced in Jesus, our story of hope, found on the Christmas Canvas and not in the frame.