Christmas Design Choice
Merry Christmas to all my readers and contributors!
As I pondered this Christmas Season, and the love I have for it, I thought about all the beauty that surrounds our lives at this time of the year. So many people prepare for Christmas by decorating their homes and cities to celebrate this wonderful season. The emotions of joy and comfort that are attached to the traditions of families and cultures around the world find expression in these Christmas decorations and celebrations of the birth of Christ.
I've had opportunities over the years to experience Christmas beauty in the homes and cities here and around the world. I am always intrigued by what I call “design choice.” Often I observe a unique decorative item or unique placement of it which, if not observed as part of the whole design, would be odd or even unseemly. Yet when you step back or take it in historical perspective, it glows beautifully genius. A brilliant out- of -the- box design choice!
Each Christmas I contemplate and meditate on the Christmas scriptures, the story of the birth of Jesus. Year after year God points out to me aspects of the happenings, all incredible in their display of God’s amazing character and wisdom, and it’s only a short moment on the timeline of mankind.
This year I was struck by eight of God's simple "design choices" specifically chronicled for us to know about this amazing birth of His Son:
The angel, Gabriel, appeared to a young girl named Mary, and told her that she was going to have a special baby boy, the long awaited Messiah. He told Joseph the baby’s name was Jesus.
Because of a new law, Mary and Joseph had to travel to a city far from their home. Mary was very pregnant so she sat on a donkey as they traveled.
There was no place for them in a house or inn when they got to the city, named Bethlehem, so Mary had her baby boy in a stable and His crib was a manger (a box in a barn for animals to eat food).
The very night that Jesus was born, God sent an angel to shepherds in a field to tell them the good news of great joy about the baby being born, and where to find the baby in the manger.
God suddenly filled the sky above them with many, many angels from heaven singing a birthday song for Jesus: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and good will to men!”
And the shepherds found the stable, Mary and Joseph, and the baby in the manger. The shepherds excitedly told them what the angels had said, and then went to tell everyone they knew about what had happened.
God also put a very bright and unusual star in the sky when Jesus was born. A star that announced a great King had been born. This star was seen by three Magi in far away countries. They traveled all the way from their countries to see the baby and to give Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
God announced and showed this baby to the prophets Anna and Simeon, who happened to be at the place of worship that Mary and Joseph brought baby Jesus. God declared through them that this child was the Messiah.
All of these simple details are the “design choices” that our triune Almighty God chose for the birth of the Savior of all mankind. So simple is this story that the youngest child can grasp it and is drawn to the joy of it. So profound is the incredulous coordination of events touching heaven and earth, that the brightest minds are drawn to the awesomeness of it. It's so emotionally impactful that the whole world celebrates the hope, peace, and joy that Christmas announces every year.
May we all embrace and enjoy the beauty of this Christmas Season, and allow the Christmas Story to fill the hearts and minds of those young and old, simple and sage, with great joy, peace, and good will toward men.
by Karen Bonasso