Monday Morning After
December 13, 2011
The church not far from my house has an unusual nativity scene on the front lawn. Many churches have nativity scenes. There are plastic ones that glow from the light bulb inside. I’ve seen golden draped 3D characters. Those are nice, but you can’t always tell who is who. There are flat wooden silhouettes that have spot lights on them. Eastwood has one like that. Every year, I think we should sneak out one evening dressed like the wooden figures, take them down and stand in their places. People drove by and looked would always wonder if one night the characters actually came alive.
But the one by my house is different. There is a flat image of Mary and the baby. You have to look at it for a moment to figure it out (something I discovered you really shouldn’t do on Rt 5, by the way). That “work of art” has been going up for several years now. But the thing that makes it different is the cross. Yes, a large cross has been planted on the lawn, just behind the nativity scene. Having lived in central NY for over 30 years, my first thought was the church was wise to get that cross in there for Easter because the snow is usually still piled high by then and it would be hard to get in in the frozen ground in March, but that isn’t the message.
Ace Collins points out that, “There are two distinct images that define the life of Christ for most Christians and non-Christians alike: the manger and the cross.” One leads to the other. In truth, the two cannot be separated in Christian thought, though we often do in practice. The Christmas story foreshadows Christ’s death with words like:
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. – Matthew 1:21
The magi suggested a dark future with their gifts, one of which is myrrh, an embalming ointment.
The underlying message is that the only way for this birth to be “Good news of great joy” is for this Savior to ultimately die for us on a cross…but mangers come first, the message of Christ in word and deed come first. God welcomes us to the manger at Christmas.
On Sunday, we had our Children’s Christmas Pageant during the service. If you looked up, you would see the large cross at the front the sanctuary, but most were watching the “news reporters” trying to speak loudly while they investigated the news for the Bethlehem Times. They did a great job and Brooke was our Angel letter writer for the morning. The very brief message was that angel means messenger and we need to be listening for the messages this Christmas. I gave my best shot at convincing people to come to church on Christmas Sunday – It only come every six years or so and this is an opportunity to actually worship on Christmas the way most Christians around the world “practice” Christmas. We also asked everyone to bring a wrapped gift to church that Sunday for the children to open, among other things. It was a joyous morning. You had to be there. Maybe you were.
