Fast forward>> We re-enter the scene with a teenage girl who is engaged. She is pregnant. The law calls for her to be stoned. How scared must she have been. The young girl was in fear of her life. Fast Forward again. She gives birth to this child in a dirty stable. Our Christmas cards make it look more like a Marriott than a place where dirty animals were kept. She gave birth during a time when her country was occupied by the enemy. Not the best time to give birth to a Savior but it happened. Then by time the child is two there is a command to kill all males under the age of two so they must flee and go into hiding.
We celebrate Christmas with our pretty cards and extravagant gifts and distance ourselves from the true story. We have flannel board Jesus images so ingrained into our minds that is the way it must have been. We forget that he came during a brutal time of history. We skip over the verses we don't understand or that become uncomfortable for us. We say we don't understand because we are afraid we might actually understand. We have taken Easter and have a happy little bunny hopping around in order not to remember the brutality of the Roman form of the death penalty. We view the cross as an object of beauty when in reality it was one of the most cruel torture devices ever created. My intentions are not to ruin a holiday but to cause us to focus on the purpose of the holiday! Make us appreciate the sacrifice even more.
Don't think they ever expected for us to see the cross like this!
