A Christmas Eve devotional
Beautiful moments happen around the Christmas tree.
It’s the center of so many of our childhood memories – the ornaments with special significance – we have a plastic toy iguana on our tree every year and one lone white sock – each a reminder of silly and fun moments in our family.
The tree is an odd tradition – bringing a huge, cone-shaped plant into our homes, putting glass and lights and tinsel on it and gifts and a choo-choo-train beneath it. But it’s a central part of our memories and a warm tradition as we all gather around it to celebrate what we love most about this day – our family and friends and the love we have for one another.
We know that Christmas is not about the tree, it’s not about the décor or the traditions either – and we get that. The reason for this season is Jesus but the tree and all the trimmings of this season came to be because of Him, right? No matter the origin of those symbols, the entire world has today – not just a day but an entire Christmas season with the lights, and foods, and decorations, and – the tree.
On Christmas Eve we pause to enjoy and gather as another moment in our traditions. The lights, the trees, the music, and the community. The prayers and singing and the message are all here to bring our hearts out of the busyness for a moment and back to the peace-giving reminder of the reason we are all here – Jesus.
From the moment he was born each breath, every step, every day he lived was a day moving toward another tree – not a tree hung with decorations or gathered around with tender memories but the tree where our savior hung.
You see while Jesus is who we celebrate this season, it is actually our sin that is the reason. And no Christmas is truly meaningful without the reminder that love came to us in that manger, walked with us through the realities of this life, and then that same love died for us on the ultimate tree – the tree of death that gave life and hope to humanity.
Remember this Christmas Eve as you sing and praise and fill your home and church with glory and joy that the true reason for the season isn’t just a baby born fulfilling prophecy but our sin and separation from God and our own need for that baby – the Savior, Christ the Lord, the newborn King who grew to die for each of us and to bring us the only hope that fulfills every longing, the only true love we can know, and the truest most wonderfully satisfying joy we can ever experience.
As we worship we can answer the question…
Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be
Which inspire your heavenly song?
I invite you to…
Come and see
Him whose birth the angels sing,
to adore on bended knee,
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
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