Today's Scripture Reading (December 24, 2021): Numbers 29
Welcome to Christmas Eve. Every year brings us to
this moment. As children, it was a night filled with anticipation for what the next day might
hold. Tonight would be a time when sleep came slowly. As a young boy, I remember
sneaking out of my room and into my sister’s room on this night. Then we would stand on her bed imagining that we could see Santa’s sleigh in the
sky. I think we conducted this Christmas Eve ritual long after both of us had stopped believing in that Jolly Old Elf. Christmas was special.
Over the past few years, I have to admit that I
emotionally understand Third Day’s song “Christmas Like a Child.”
I want to feel Christmas how it used to be
With all of its wonder falling on me
This season has felt so empty, oh for quite while
I
want to feel Christmas like a child.
The dream is of experiencing Christmas without all of the extra
stuff that has seemed to become attached to it over the years, like worries about bills and tasks that are waiting for us in the New Year. To lose it all for just this moment
and just experience Christmas.
As Numbers works through its reflection on the
various sacrifices and Holy Days commanded to be celebrated by
Israel, part of that reflection is
centered on the observance of the Day of
Atonement or Yom Kippur. On the tenth day of the seventh month, the people were
to observe a day of remembrance. They were to do no work and to deny
themselves. Yon Kippur was not designed to be a happy day; it was intended to be a day of repentance
and sacrifice. It was a reminder of the reasons behind the need for atonement,
a day when the people considered not just their personal sin but the sin of the
nation.
The Christian Day of Atonement is Good Friday. On
that day, Christ died as the sacrifice for our sins, and we recognize that it is his blood that atones for our sins. But the reality is that the end
of the life of Christ cannot be separated from the beginning. Jesus left his
throne in heaven to be born as the child in the manger. It was a sacrifice that would not have been necessary except
for our sin.
Christmas starts tonight. And it should be a time of
celebration for the birth of a child, but it is also a time of mourning for our sin, which was the reason why Jesus
left heaven to step into our existence. It is a time when we commit to denying ourselves to concentrate all of who we are on God and the people
around us. Christmas
should be a time when love reigns and
everything else falls away because we recognize the importance of all
of those around us, acknowledging that it is because of our value in the sight
of God that he sent his child to us to make atonement for our sins.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Luke 2
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