Yesterday as I drove to work on my usual route, something unusual stopped me in my tracks.
Literally.
I pulled the car over to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.
Sure enough, it was one of those Christmas inflatables - the kind my sister can't stand and is always threatening to take out with a BB gun.
If you knew my sister, you'd know she'd never take out a squirrel, let alone a harmless Christmas decoration. She just likes pretending to be tough.
But someone or something did destroy this humble lawn ornament, which lay crumpled in someone's trash.
Now, this wasn't just any inflatable. I had never seen one like it, and it held particular meaning for me each morning as I passed by because it stood out in the sea of commercialism and secularism that has overtaken the greatest miracle ever known to man - divinity stooping down to earth to save humanity from itself.
I speak, of course, of the birth of Christ. The inflatable that made me catch my breath each morning, reminding me of the true meaning of Christmas, depicted the Nativity scene.
It was pretty simple - just parents and Baby in their humble surroundings - but Amazon prices it at over $100.
As if one could put a price on the Incarnation.
Now, it's entirely likely that the thing was old and weather-beaten and couldn't withstand another Christmas out in the cold. It's also possible, in our increasingly hostile world which is increasingly hostile to all things sacred, that some piteous person took out his or her aggression on this symbol of redemption.
Either way, as the Grinch found out, it won't keep Christmas from coming.
Puncturing plastic won't halt the impact of what happened 2,000 years ago any more than the removal of tinsel and trees and toys could thwart what the Who's down in Whoville were singing about in Dr. Seuss's classic tale.
Christ came. He lives even after unenlightened hearts tried to stop His unstoppable one. He reigns, despite much evidence to the contrary, even as our fallen world slips ever further into madness and mayhem.
He asks only that we do our part to remind others of these facts, and that we remain faithful to His call on our lives.
After many months of allowing my pen to sit idle, herein lies my attempt to do just that.
Literally.
I pulled the car over to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.
Sure enough, it was one of those Christmas inflatables - the kind my sister can't stand and is always threatening to take out with a BB gun.
If you knew my sister, you'd know she'd never take out a squirrel, let alone a harmless Christmas decoration. She just likes pretending to be tough.
But someone or something did destroy this humble lawn ornament, which lay crumpled in someone's trash.
Now, this wasn't just any inflatable. I had never seen one like it, and it held particular meaning for me each morning as I passed by because it stood out in the sea of commercialism and secularism that has overtaken the greatest miracle ever known to man - divinity stooping down to earth to save humanity from itself.
I speak, of course, of the birth of Christ. The inflatable that made me catch my breath each morning, reminding me of the true meaning of Christmas, depicted the Nativity scene.
It was pretty simple - just parents and Baby in their humble surroundings - but Amazon prices it at over $100.
As if one could put a price on the Incarnation.
Now, it's entirely likely that the thing was old and weather-beaten and couldn't withstand another Christmas out in the cold. It's also possible, in our increasingly hostile world which is increasingly hostile to all things sacred, that some piteous person took out his or her aggression on this symbol of redemption.
Either way, as the Grinch found out, it won't keep Christmas from coming.
Puncturing plastic won't halt the impact of what happened 2,000 years ago any more than the removal of tinsel and trees and toys could thwart what the Who's down in Whoville were singing about in Dr. Seuss's classic tale.
Christ came. He lives even after unenlightened hearts tried to stop His unstoppable one. He reigns, despite much evidence to the contrary, even as our fallen world slips ever further into madness and mayhem.
He asks only that we do our part to remind others of these facts, and that we remain faithful to His call on our lives.
After many months of allowing my pen to sit idle, herein lies my attempt to do just that.
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