In case you missed it...
check out this wonderful blog post (below)
by Rev. Ed Hird
from Dec. 2010.
I just found it today...
better late than never!
- - - - - - -
Childhood
memories inescapably come to my mind each Christmas. One of my favorite
Christmas Carols as a child was ‘Away in a Manger’. This delightful
lullaby still soothes my soul in unexpected ways. The term ‘lullaby’
comes from the Swedish term ‘lulla’, meaning ‘an intermission or lull in the
storm’. With three lively sons in our family, my wife and I have
always been grateful for any lull in the storm. My parents have often
reminded me of what a lovely son I was when I was sleeping!
The
inescapable season of Christmas is intended to be a lullaby, a lull in the
storm of life. So often we wear ourselves out trying to do Christmas
right. Without intending to, we spend too much, eat too much, and drink
too much. I am more and more convinced that the real key to a joyful
Christmas is less, not more; slower, not faster. The heart of Christmas
is simplicity. The heart of Christmas is a manger.
When
you think about the first Christmas, there was ‘no crib for a bed’. The
cattle were LOWING, which is an ancient term for mooing and making a
racket! No wonder ‘the Baby awakes’. I wonder how many mothers
reading this article have had to give birth in a barn? I wonder how many
modern-day Moms ever used a feeding trough as a baby crib? Yet that is
what ‘Away in A Manger/Feeding Trough’ meant on the very first Christmas day.
No one actually knows who wrote the words to this delightful carol.
I wonder if it was written by a stressed-out parent with several children under
the age of three. Personal experience has taught me that sleep is a rare
commodity for parents with babies. You just have to snatch a couple of
hours in-between feeding, cleaning and crying times. In my early
twenties, I said that I would never have children until scientists had solved
the problem of children crying! After being stuck in an hour-long traffic
jam with my wailing baby nephew Boyd, I started to fantasize about creating a
mechanism that would switch Boyd’s screaming into a flashing light on his
forehead. My hunch is that the author of ‘Away in a Manger’ may have had
the same desires when he wrote ‘But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes’.
The amazing thing about raising three boys is that after a while the
crying and wailing doesn’t traumatize you in the same way. I am not sure
if that is because you suffer from hearing loss along the way. Either way
I am convinced that baby Jesus, being fully human as well as fully God, wailed
and cried with the best of them. And mother Mary and Joseph probably
suffered from sleep deprivation, but loved the little Lord Jesus regardless.
There is something so amazing about being parents looking at one’s
sleeping baby. As our babies lay down their sweet heads, as the stars in
the bright sky look down where they lay, something stirs within the most
hardened workaholic heart. Babies are worth the sacrifice. Babies
are worth the investment. No wonder God became a baby at Christmas.
God stole our hearts by turning up ‘away in a manger’. Who cannot love
God as a helpless baby?
As a young child I sincerely sang in Sunday School: ‘I love you Lord
Jesus, look down from the sky and stay by my bedside till morning is
nigh’. I meant it when I sang: ‘Be near me Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay
close by me for ever, and love me, I pray.’ But as I became older, my
heart hardened. I became cynical and jaded towards Christmas and
Church. Jesus to me became little more than a swear word. The
miracle is that Jesus cracked through my cold distracted heart and showed me
real love. My prayer for those reading this article is that the Reason
for this Season, Jesus, may ‘fit us for heaven, to live with thee there’.
- - - - - - -
Merry Christmas (Eve)!
