Devotion 305 - No Ava

 My birthday is the second day of November.  I remember waiting for that day all year.  

The long eleven months from Christmas until that day seemed eternal, equally so then the wait from my birthday until Christmas Day. 

Strange how today the time seems to evaporate so much like mist disappears into air. 

My children likewise comment school is forever, and Thanksgiving until Christmas, “seems like a year.”  I can relate yet I wonder, what changes, what slows time and speeds time.  Is it age or is it in the knowing there are only twenty four hours in the day and in that time we must pack in forty eight more things during the holidays and thus the time simply slips away.

I never knew having children would cause me to live and relive questions and thoughts long since forgotten in my own childhood.

It is amazing really.  It is a chance to look in the mirror with the mind and the resources of an adult at the questions and curiosities of youth.

Does the Bible say that children will teach us? Certainly it is their faith that is our mentor.

My baby daughter turned to me as we read a Bible story in bed.  I was excited; you see I had a new advent book this year.  This year I would spread out time.  We would embrace every week of advent.  We would light every candle.  It wasn't going to be all about the event but the advent, the coming, the Savior.

She turned to me with her little almond eyes and said, “My Jesus is NOT a baby.”

She stumped me.

I remember this question as well.  I remember turning around three times after opening my Easter basket and watching Jesus of Nazareth on television.  After thanking Him for His death and resurrection and then suddenly, He was a baby again.

I was mystified.

No one visits the delivery room on my birthday, why do we visit the manger I wondered. I thought long how to answer this, almond eyes peering at me looking for some ounce of wisdom.  I prayed.

You see I love tradition.  I love Christmas trees and hollies.  I love present giving and present wrapping.  I suddenly dug through my heart trying to discern if I really could separate tradition from truth, and unite the baby with the Savior.

Do we place Him back in the manger as it is a sweet story to tell? Or is there something in that stable we are meant to relearn and retell?

I look in Isaiah, the prophet that tells of a King.  Yet there, hidden in the promise is the position,  “ I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. “  (Isaiah 57:15)

the lowly

the lowly stable

the lowly spirit

 the lowly household

the lowly faith. 

He began as we are such that we could end where He is...

Absolutely amazing.

I turn to my little daughter.  I want to pass off Christmas as a birthday celebration, but it is so much more.

I remind her that this home we love so much is only here for us to grow up in,  me and her.  

One day our home will be in heaven, but only because He, for a time, decided to take up his residence in a stable.

He came as a carpenter, and fashioned a key to His kingdom. 

“No Ava…you are right, He is not a baby, but we are ever so glad He was one.”

We rejoice that for a time He lived as a little boy such that He could love little girls and little boys so dearly. 

And we are so grateful He lived as a man so He could understand when mommies and daddies make mistakes and He can pick them up and dust them off and let them begin again.

And forever we thank Him for trading what should have been a jeweled crown for a crown of thorns, and what should have been a palace, for a stable. 

“No Ava, your Jesus is not a baby... He is the Christ in Christmas.”