The Glory of Christmas


I LOVE a Christmas pageant.

There.  I've said it!

I've loved them since I was a little girl and I got to be an angel, with a tinsel halo and wings my mother mistakenly put on me upside-down.

I loved it when I got to play Mary, cuddling a little baby and looking into the eyes of a man who would actually one day become my husband.

And I have LOVED the Glory of Christmas epic spectacular that Northridge Church has presented for years.  I mean who wouldn't?  There are fireworks and flying angels, a full orchestra, and both secular and sacred Christmas music...

But as I end this Christmas season, I need to remember that the story of Jesus does not end at the manger.

In fact, look at this picture taken at Northridge's GoC pageant.  That manger doesn't look like any I've ever seen before - and it doesn't even look like the one the family is under at the end of the show...

No - THIS manger, if you look closely, is one that looks very much like a crown of thorns...the crown that Jesus would wear as He took our sins with Him unto death.

The story of Christmas isn't really about a baby at all.  Instead it is one in which "God so loved the world that He gave his one and only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." - John 3:16



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