Saturday, January 5, 2013
Twelfth Christmas Day
Luke 2:52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
CHRISTMAS WAS JUST THE BEGINNING
Here we are then at the twelfth day of Christmas. At midnight tonight the season officially ends. We did much to prepare for Christmas. We decorated churches and homes. We planned parties and festivities. We readied special worship services and songs. We also did much to celebrate Christmas when it arrived. We greeted one another with smiles and good words, we listened once again to the Evangelist Luke's famous account of the birth of Jesus, and many of us heard our little children doing as the angelic messengers once did: "sweetly singing o'er the plain."
The temptation might be to walk away from the season now with something of a regretful sigh and think, "Well, that was nice, too bad it's over."
Is it really over? For Jesus, wasn't Christmas just a beginning? It was the beginning of an important time of growth for him. It was the beginning of His physical journey from childhood to adulthood. Jesus got taller. His voice changed. He grew like boys grow into men. During the days, months, and years after Christmas He showed that He was truly sharing in our humanity -- so that He could one day die our death and destroy Him who holds the power of death over us (Hebrews 2:14).
Christmas also marked the beginning of a certain spiritual journey for Jesus. In the years after Christmas He learned of God's love and mercy from the Scriptures, from religious teachers (remember the event in the temple when he was twelve years old), and from His parents (recall how they took him to Jerusalem yearly to celebrate Passover). He grew in His faith and in favor with God and men.
Let Christmas be such a beginning for us. Let these days and months after the holiday be for us as they were for our Lord: days of spiritual growth, of gaining in wisdom and understanding. May Christmas provide for us a starting point to rededicate ourselves to the things of God and to His work.
Oh, may we keep and ponder in our mind
God's wondrous love in saving lost mankind!
Trace we the Babe, who hath retrieved our loss,
From His poor manger to His bitter cross,
Tread in His steps, assisted by His grace,
Till man's first heavenly state again takes place.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 84:5)
