For This Purpose...
Since the children are not coming home for Christmas this year, I'm only pulling out a few decorations. Front and center is the nativity we've had for over 35 years. While setting it up, I realized.."We are missing Mary and a wiseman!? Why would those two be off alone?" I found them wrapped up together, hiding in a corner!
Each year it is a thrill to unwrap the Baby Jesus. But that is not so for everyone. There are homes without nativity scenes. There are people who couldn't begin to tell you the first Bible story or sing a Christmas carol. What do we do with that?
In the current Advent study I'm doing we've started off studying the sins which Adam and Cain were involved in. Who looks at the baby in the nativity and thinks about sin? We all should!
The reason Jesus had to leave his heavenly home and come to earth was to be the propitiation for our sins. So when we lay Baby Jesus in the manger, be sure to say "Thank You!"
"For this purpose Christ willed to be born that through him we might be born again."
Martin Luther
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.
1 Corinthians 15:3
