Do you See What I See?
Do you enjoy watching children reenact the Christmas story, a living Nativity display or a Nativity set up in your home? Seeing the Christ child in humble surroundings is a meaningful part of the holiday. It reminds us of the reason for the season. The Christ who came to earth as a baby for our redemption.
Saint Francis of Assisi was the founder of the Nativity scene. In 1223 A.D. Saint Francis asked the Pope for permission to do something special to spark more devotional interest in the birth of the Christ Child. He gathered a manger of hay with an ox and a donkey and used it to illustrate the humble means to which Jesus came into the world. Ever since then it has been represented in paintings and as Nativity scenes both life size and miniature. The Bible never mentions animals being present at Christ's birth, nor do we see the shepherds and the magi present at the same time in Bethlehem. Even so, the Nativity tableau is meaningful and useful to us in remembering the literal incarnation of our Lord. Here is a video from Sight and Sound Voices of Christmas showing St. Francis so many years ago starting a new Christmas tradition.
Visualization in meditation of Scripture has its value. I am a visual learner so this is particularly helpful to me. I am not referring to New Age type visualization and meditation. That kind of focus can detract from or eclipse Scripture and God as core truth. I am referring to what we can see directly in Bible passages.
Remember Jesus was a story teller with parables and illustrations. A large chunk of the Bible (at least 40%) are narrations of stories in both the Old and New Testament. When we picture stories so vividly presented, we learn more about God, the Biblical characters and even ourselves. The Bible tells about sounds (i.e. the crow of the rooster), smells (i.e. the incense) and tastes (i.e. honey). Always pray asking the Holy Spirit to guard and guide you in your time in the Word. Learn to read the Bible using your mind's eye and think about what you can see, hear, smell and taste. Pastor John Piper discusses visualization of Christ as a way to overcome lust. He talks about both the usefulness and the pitfalls of Biblical visualization.
A favorite Michael W. Smith song for worship reminds us to look with spiritual eyes
toward God.
Open
the eyes of my heart, Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You
You may have found as I have, that songs we
sing in church over and over with repetitious verses can cause the mind to
wander. A little trick I do to keep my mind on the Lord while singing is to
visualize what the song says and how it impacts me.
THE CHRIST CHILD IN THE BIBLE
The shepherds went to see the child in the
manger.
When
the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go
to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing
that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” Luke
2:15 NLT
The wise men followed the star, and thus saw
the Christ.
The star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them
and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with
joy! Matthew 2: 9b-10 NLT
The Bible points us continually to look to Jesus.
In fact we are to fix our eyes on Him as our compass for life. That is what
this verse means when we dig into the meaning in the original language - to
focus our view fixed on Him.
Let us run with endurance the race God has set
before us. We do this by keeping our
eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Hebrews 12: 1b-2a. NLT
Take time this Christmas to focus on Jesus' birth and dwell on it a little. Reflect on His humble birth in a manger and the players who moved in and out. Imagine yourself as a fly on the wall as you read the Christmas story. Imagine what may have been the sounds you heard and the scents. Does this give you insights into the Christmas story? What does it tell you about God become man?
God became flesh to identify with us and be sympathetic to our pain, our suffering and our temptations. He became like us to empathize and extend to us mercy and grace when we need it most. What a gift!
[Jesus] understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. Hebrews 4:15-16
Jesus became flesh to take our sin upon Himself, to make us right with God. To rescue us completely from our sin and make us right with God. What a gift!
And
all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ.
And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer
counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of
reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:19 NLT
Merry Christmas!
Up Next: Connoisseur of the Word
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