Join me this Christmas in stargazing, contemplating the divine mystery – “God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1: 14). Such contemplation can have a purifying effect in our lives and help us to set our sights on that which is most important in life – on God’s eternal purpose. 

Christmas has always been a joyful time of the year for me, from childhood through the teen years and on into adult life.  A baby’s birth is always cause for rejoicing, and there is something quaint and beautiful about the manger scene.  Yet it wasn’t until I was converted by personally trusting Christ that Christmas became intrinsically welded to Easter.  No longer were they distant, unattached events spanning thirty years or more.

I believe that if I were an artist, I would never paint the manger scene without a shadow of the cross stretching over it.  A wonderful old Christmas Appalachian ballad, I Wonder as I Wander, addresses this connection of birth and death.

“I wonder as I wander
Out under the sky
How Jesus the Savior
Did come forth to die
For poor ornery people
Like you and like I,
I wonder as I wander
Out under the sky.” 

I wonder how many of us have taken the time lately to be stargazers—time to look up into the heavens and the galaxies beyond to ponder the riches of His grace and this simple mysterious truth of Christ, that is, “Jesus the Savior did come forth to die”?

Christmas cards have lovely pictures and clever verses.  Yet I would like to share with you this simple verbal, imaginative picture of divine truth.  The cross overshadowed the stable, overshadowed Bethlehem . . . 

“When Mary birthed Jesus
Was in a cow stall
With wise men, and shepherds,
And farmers and all;
And down from God’s heaven
A star’s light did fall
As the promise of ages

 It then did recall.” 

Join me this Christmas in stargazing, contemplating the divine mystery – “God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1: 14). Such contemplation can have a purifying effect in our lives and help us to set our sights on that which is most important in life – on God’s eternal purpose.

The purpose of Christ’s first advent was to reconcile sinful people, “Like you and like I,” with a holy God through His death on the cross.

“I wonder as I wander
Out under the sky
How Jesus the Savior
Did come forth to die.” 

Now that I understand Christmas more fully, my joy has tripled from that of a child or teenager.  Knowing WHY He came is as important as HOW He came!  All are born and will one day die, but Jesus’ birth was unique because He came to die—to die “for poor ornery people like you and like I”!

Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.