I love to get into the spirit of Christmas season. Memories from childhood flood my mind as I think back to how I learned that my parents – not Santa - stayed up all night laying out gifts they had hidden in secret spaces all year long, then carefully placed them under the tree - one for each sibling, after we retired to bed. So excited by the anticipation of what Christmas morning would bring, my siblings and I stayed up until the last stroke of midnight to shorten the time we had to sleep before we were allowed to get up to open presents the next morning. Christmas Eve wound to a close with the ritual that either my mother or father would read to us Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem after we baked cookies for Santa and placed them at the table for him to eat with his coffee. Then, we trotted off to bed. Once I climbed in bed it seemed like 7 o’clock a.m. would never come. Squeezing my eyelids tightly as themes from the poem, “The Night Before Christmas”, danced in my head, I tried to sleep fast. But thoughts about presents “Santa” would place beneath our tree swirled in my mind, building to a crescendo until I wore myself out and finally drifted off to sleep.
By 7 am next morning we raced down stairs to discover ….. in a matter of less than 10 minutes ….that our nicely wrapped presents placed neatly in stacks with our names on top, would be ripped open and strown all over the floor. All of a sudden the uncontrollable excitement drained to an anti-climactic let-down as we looked at the pile of shredded paper there on the floor. Back then I had no clue that the real meaning of Christmas had little to do with wrapped presents, but rather with Presence …God’s gift to humanity….a Presence who came wrapped in flesh, clothed in swaddling, lying in a manger, bearing the name Jesus …..meaning “He will save us” – just as prophecy foretold and the gospel of Matthew reveals, chapter 1:21….”…..you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins”.
Many years went by before I understood the real meaning of Christmas despite the fact my mother read to us stories from the Bible. I was probably in my late twenties before real understanding of this truth pierced my heart and in my early thirties, as a divorced, single parent before I had a changed mind and came to authentic faith. I then recognized it was not about me trying to be “Santa”, going into debt as gift giver to my own child. But lifting up Jesus as the Gift who she received at eleven years old as her Lord. After that, together we were baptized for that Christmas.
Receiving presents for Christmas is heartwarming, for sure. But, understanding that what Christmas really means is that Jesus brings His Presence all over again into our hearts – for all who would receive Him. A gift, the real gift that transforms a life. Wipes away and covers our sin. Releases us from our shame. Rescues us from hiding behind perfectionism, addictions. Replaces all this with authentic living and new life, a new mind, a new way of being.
We enter into the 1st week of December celebrating what is called “Advent” in the liturgical year, which introduces the Christmas season. Here….our focus is on the coming birth of Jesus….Yeshua, in Hebrew, means Savior.
Will you ponder this truth with me and invite him anew into your heart?
Dr. Saundra J. Taulbee,
Lead Pastor
