If one can get past the inflatable snowmen, tinsel, and wrapped presents, Christmas’ focus is on a baby in a manger. Yet this meager sign should point us to the true destination of the season’s joy. 

The coming of the Messiah was prophesied as including a virgin birth in the town of Bethlehem. But it was just a sign. 

We marvel at the thought of an angelic host singing over the shepherds. It’s easy to fixate on the helpless babe in the manger; it’s pleasant to think of a cooing baby smiling at domesticated animals. 

But our months-long preparations for Christmas are a lot like standing on the roadside for hours admiring the “distance” sign to our stated destination. The view might be nice, but we must keep moving.

To fully appreciate Christmas, we must travel seven miles from Bethlehem to the city of Jerusalem, to Golgotha. To meaningfully understand the baby in the manger, we must also see Him as a man hanging from a cross. But not just hanging on a cross – many died in such a manner. What made this Man so important is that He rose from the dead afterward.

Two places, a 10-minute walk apart, vie for the title of the crucification and burial sites of Jesus. One has more than a millennia of history on its side, the other has geography. At one place you can feel the millions of pilgrims who have visited the site, at the other you can see how it must have looked that first Easter.

The joy of Christmas is but a foretaste of the joy of Easter. Baubles and trinkets under a tree will perish, but the gift of salvation through the risen Christ lasts for eternity.

As Isaac Watts wrote:

Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns:
let men their songs employ;
while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan

Tuesday, December 24, 2019