The Excess vs. The Essential

This evening I watched "The Nativity." It hearkened back to a meditation I had on the awareness of the true meaning of Christmas in our culture today. The United States is inudated with everything unhelpful in reminding you what the season is about. During those days I began humming these lines from a well-loved Christmas hymn:

"No ear may hear his coming, But in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in."

What does this mean? I've heard it said over and over again that the Christmas season is the most stressful season of the year. Preparatons, preparations, preparations. But what are we really preparing for? What really comes? Why do we cause ourselves so much stress? Could it be that there is a direct parallel to our souls? Does the material reality depict the spiritual reality? It sure seems so.

Receiving Christ, preparing our hearts for His presence should not be a stressful process. It will be however, if we insist on thinking that we must make ourselves presentable in perfection before He comes. I'm sure no cleaning crew existed to ready the manger scene before His birth. He took the humblest abode - one that was ready and willing to receive Him as it lay. I believe God did this to demonstrate an important spiritual principle (among many others).

Human souls respond so similarly to salvation. We fill our lives with abundance of non-sensical priorities, thinking that on this will ride the saviour we have all been looking for. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. In the hearts of those truly quieted from trying to make themselves something they can never be, comes the Saviour that makes them into something they could never have achieved. Christ geared us to receive Him without the busyness of non-essential activities, but in the true sanctuary of the heart - where we can be nothing but ourselves. Anyone can look and see inside that something is not quite right. Then we must admit there is nothing we can do about it. Once this attitude is in place, the "dear Christ enters in" - without a red carpet (we don't have one), and without full knowledge of who He is (there are no limits, Romans 11:33). "Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Hail, the heavn'-born Prince of Peace!"