It was only two days after setting up our beloved nativity scene when I knew the time had come to finally build the wooden manger I’ve been contemplating for years. There he was – the tallest of the wise men- toppled over on the ground after a stiff evening wind. Next to him was the donkey jostled afar from where I placed him, while the sheep, the lightest and smallest of them all, remained in our yard only by means of his tethered electrical cord. The remaining figures endured, although their clustered formation around the baby Jesus resembled more of a football huddle than a nativity.
This was the year something had to change.
So I sketched out some plans, dusted off my radial saw and a few other assorted tools, set up the sawhorses, and made my way to the local home improvement store to pick up the needed supplies. What followed was a week or so filled with sawdust, decking screws, and more than a few revisions, during which time I was often struck by the irony of applying my minimal woodworking skills to building a manger honoring the One who would grow up as a carpenter’s son. How would He have done this? What level of perfection would He require? Would He smile or just shake His head? Funny how thoughts like these can run through our heads at Christmas.
Finally, the big day arrived and the new manger, scattered in four parts on my garage floor, was assembled in earnest. It actually held together. All of those plastic figures now had a home, except for that one overly tall wise man who had to settle for being secured to the earth with concrete rebar. Let the winds blow!
As dusk arrived for the manger’s big debut, the lights of all the figures twinkled on at the command of a timer, including the lights on the rustic star affixed to the manger’s back wall. Everything was radiant. But something was still missing. There was no angel. Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, a shepherd, wise men, a donkey and a sheep, but no angel.
And so the small project I thought would take just a few days now extended to weeks as my wife and I searched for just the right angel to be the finishing touch. We checked in stores and grew tired of grinches and the like, we browsed online and were unimpressed by the selection and the prices, and finally concluded nothing seemed to work. Maybe we would just need to forego the angel idea and wait another year. After all, the manger was now keeping everything in place, which was the original goal of the whole project. But not yet being ready to throw in the towel, we kept looking for an angel we just knew was out there.
Imagine our surprise when we found one. There, in an old but well-kept box, on the floor of a rescue mission thrift store in Knoxville, Tennessee, was exactly the angel we had been looking for. It’s like it had been placed there just for us. When we took her to the register, the cashier told us how she had observed our excitement at finding the angel, and then shared that she had seen the angel before, when it was first donated to the store and assembled for inspection, and that she was beautiful. We couldn’t wait to get her home. Our nativity scene would finally be complete.
Back in Indiana a few days later, I ventured into the garage on a cold, mid-December night and opened the box for the first time. What I saw took me aback. There in that old box was the angel, but in multiple pieces, crisscrossed with wires and lights and looking like an absolute disaster. I looked at the picture on the box, then back at the pieces inside, and was sorely tempted to give up before I began. But I resolved to make this work, and I began pulling the pieces out, placing them one-by-one onto the frigid concrete floor.
The robe that was flowing white in the picture was now discolored with age. The golden wings were dismantled, dim, and no longer sparkling. The arms looked broken and seemingly impossible to reconnect. And the sash around her waist, so vibrant and royal in the picture, was worn and weathered, the sure sign that she had seen many past winters exposed to the various elements that wore her down.
After three or four attempts to put her back together, I almost – almost – closed the box and chalked it all up as a loss. It may sound strange, but the one thing that kept me from doing so was the box itself. That box, as old as it was, was in such good shape that I knew this angel had been loved by someone before. Then I remembered the cashier telling us she was beautiful. And that picture on the box kept reminding me that sometimes we need to look beyond what our eyes can see. I just couldn’t give up on her now.
Taking my time, applying patience and a dozen or so plastic zip ties, I slowly put the angel back together, piece by piece, wire by wire, until it finally stood upright, starting to resemble what it was truly meant to be. An arm or a wing fell off here and there, and at least once she toppled over in a heap, but a few more zip ties fixed the problem, and she was back upright in no time.
Then came the real moment of truth. I took that white plug at the end of her last wire and inserted it into the outlet on the wall. The lights all turned on, every single one of them, and it was then that this faded, used, once-loved angel glowed with a beauty so soft that it was almost breathtaking. And to think I almost missed it.
All of this left me thinking that in one way or another, we are all just like that angel, created to be loved, but packed away in boxes with labels like broken, overlooked, discouraged, arrogant, empty, frail, unhealthy, cynical, hardened, doubtful, rebellious, proud, rejected, suffering, abused, frightened, or any of a thousand more labels that might apply, kept in boxes called life with no real hope until someone opens the box and turns on the lights. We are all seemingly unfixable, until someone takes the time to see the beauty inside, to gently restores us, and to gives the light that makes us come alive. Someone just like Jesus.
Isn’t this exactly what Christmas is all about?
It was there in that Bethlehem stable, so many starry nights ago, that the baby Jesus was born after nine months in His mother’s womb, born to a world of hopelessness, born to a world of brokenness, born to a world in need of a Savior. He was never born to stay in a manger, but to be the light of the world, the light shining in the darkness, the great light dawning on all of us living in the land of the shadow of death. He was born to come and turn on the one light — His light — that gives hope.
He, too, would know what it is like to be broken and thrown away. He, too, would be despised and rejected. But He would overcome, He would be the lamb without blemish, He would pay the price for our sin, so that all who place their trust in Him might know the eternal joy and light of heaven and to be clothed in the purest of white, no longer faded by the trials and sin of this world. Jesus is why Christmas had to be.
Worshipped by shepherds, heralded by angels, cherished by His mother, sought by the magi, feared by kings, wrapped in swaddling cloths, taking on flesh that He might walk among us, the King of kings was born, at a time no one expected, in a city with no room, beneath a star unlike any other the world has ever seen.
He is Jesus, born to bring hope, born to seek and save the lost, born to lay down His life, because He loves us, every single one of us — for well are all made in the image of God.
May this be a Christmas season in which we quiet our hearts, remember His mission, and worship the One who whispers to our hearts yet today: you are loved.
Have a blessed and peaceful Christmas.
Mike Fichter
President and CEO
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. Isaiah 9:2 (ESV)
Recent Comments