​Daily Devotion: Christmas in April

(CLICK HERE TO READ Luke 2:1-7

FROM BROTHER MIKE:

Our family has had this quilted nativity for more than 20 years. This is another backstory that has gotten lost in the backwaters of my mind. Was it a gift? Or a purchase from a craft fair? If you gave this to our family, please forgive me for not remembering. It hangs in my home year-round.

Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and the star are featured in this beautiful quilt. About 15 years ago I put this out for Christmas and never took it down. The birth of Jesus is part of our story all year long and throughout our lives.

This piece is a reminder to those of us who are parents of a very precious time in our lives when our family of two became a family of three. This child changed everything!

This child changed our relationship with each other. This child changed our relationships with our parents and with everybody else we know. Because this child changed us! We became Mom and Dad. We took on an obligation unlike any that we had ever known. This child was totally dependent on us. And somehow, this child enabled us to do things we had never thought of doing:  changing diapers – no problem; cleaning up vomit – its gotta be done; getting up in the middle of the night, once, twice, seven times – it is my turn; and thinking first of someone else – is it too hot, too cold, too bright, or too dark – oh, I’m fine, check on the baby!

This was Mary and Joseph's first child. So, like us, they had no idea what they were getting into. And then, before they could wrap themselves in the support of their families, they had to flee to Egypt. They spent several years as refugees in Egypt before they returned home to Nazareth.

But all of that is still ahead of them. For right now it is just the three of them.  They know that this baby is special. Just how special? Mary and Joseph have to discover that in much the same way that you and I have to figure it out. Who is this baby to me?

During this Easter Season we remember the baby that was born in the manger. Chris Rice wrote and sang, “Fragile finger sent to heal us, tender brow prepared for thorn, tiny heart whose blood will save us, unto us is born, unto us is born.” Far beyond any human expectation, this child is the Savior.

Thanks be to God,
Brother Mike