I wanted to take a minute to wish you a very Merry Christmas from the Courtney family to yours. This Christmas season, I have had the song “O Come All Ye Faithful” stuck in my head. A few days ago, I decided to look up the lyrics and I stumbled upon a stanza that I had never seen before. It’s not included in the updated version we hear today:

Child, for us sinners
Poor and in the manger,
We would embrace thee, with love and awe;
Who would not love thee,
Loving us so dearly?

“Who would not love thee, loving us so dearly?” Wow. With the birth of Christ, God delivered to our hearts a brand of love that cannot be matched by anything the world has to offer. Some of us learn that the hard way, only after knocking ourselves out in pursuit of the world’s prizes. Take it from someone who “embraced Thee with love and awe,” after 21 years of chasing after everything the world promised would bring happiness, only to come up short in the end. Woefully short. As in abundant-life-kinda-short. (John 10:10b)

And yet, there are others who continue along the futile path of gathering up the world’s prizes. Sadly, they attempt to fill the void in their hearts with one more dollar…thing…person…achievement, until they breathe their final breath. They build their lives on a bedrock of counterfeit gods, pretending to be in control of their destinies. To them, Christmas is nothing more than another “holiday” on the calendar. Time off from work. Time spent with family. This “baby Jesus” in the manger is an afterthought…if even a thought, at all. They want nothing to do with God at Christmas, or any other day of the year for that matter. How my heart breaks for them! If you are reading this and you fall into this category, I implore you to “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” (Acts 3:19)

As the Christmas season comes to a close and we are surrounded by nativity scenes, let me ask you this question: When you see that baby in the manger, do you see just a baby? Or do you see, as the song says, a “Child, for us sinners?” A child sent by God to deliver on a promise? A child who came to rescue us from the penalty of our sins? A child who trumped every counterfeit brand of love created by the world? A child who died to satisfy the ache within our hearts to be perfectly loved? A child who, if embraced, will rock your world to the very core? I pray I will never pass by a nativity scene again and fail to see that child. While we associate the manger scene and the birth of Christ with Christmas, what followed in this epic love story should leave a song in our hearts year-round.

Who would not love thee,
Loving us so dearly?

O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O Come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.