I’ll never forget the year that baby Jesus disappeared.
One day he was sleeping peacefully in that cute plastic stable, and the next day he was gone. Mary and Joseph were still lingering in Bethlehem and the shepherds were still hanging out with the sheep. But the baby in the manger was nowhere to be found.
We hunted all over the house for that pudgy plastic babe. And we wondered how the synthetic star of our Fisher Price nativity set could have gone AWOL before we’d even lit our first Advent candle.
We looked in the kitchen and in the toy box, under the Christmas tree and under the couch cushions. We checked in dresser drawers and in bookshelves, in laundry baskets and in the bathtub. (After all, my seven-year-old had reasoned, Jesus might be feeling pretty grimy after spending the night on a bed of hay.) Finally we gave up the search, and I assured my devastated children that baby Jesus would show up sooner or later.
I kept my eyes peeled for that missing babe all through the month of December. But by the time Christmas break rolled around and my school-agers came tumbling off the big yellow bus with their bulging backpacks and happy whoops, I officially declared our missing Savior an unsolved mystery.
That afternoon, with the creative help of my second-grade daughter, I concocted a new baby Jesus using a small wooden clothespin and a swaddle of Kleenex. We lay our homemade hero in the empty manger and reminded ourselves that we didn’t need a perfect nativity scene in order to have a fabulous Christmas.
The kids headed downstairs to play, and I began unpacking the backpacks that had been dropped at the door. I unloaded damp snow pants, day-old lunch boxes and crumpled homework pages. And then, as I reached into the very bottom of my kindergartener’s school bag, I felt something smooth and small. Something pudgy and plastic.
I wrapped my fingers around the curious conundrum and pulled it from the bottom of my daughter’s pink backpack.
That’s when I realized what I was holding. I stared incredulously at the pudgy plastic Jesus I’d just excavated, and I hollered down the stairs for Hannah.
“Look what I found!” I exclaimed as my girl came bounding up the stairs, her blonde pigtails bobbing.
She reached for the plastic infant, her eyes alight with excitement. “I can’t believe you found him, Mommy. Where was he? Where was he?” Hannah cuddled the baby in the palm of her hand and swayed as if she were rocking him to sleep.
“I found him at the bottom of your backpack,” I replied with a raise of my eyebrows.
Hannah stopped swaying and turned her blue eyes toward mine as an apologetic shadow crossed her face. “Oops…” she said, staring at her hands.
“We’ve been looking for him for so long,” I reminded my kindergartener. “Did you know he was in your bag?”
Hannah fidgeted from one foot to another. “Um. I guess I just forgot that I put him in there…” My five-year-old studied my countenance to see if she was in trouble; then continued, “Mommy, remember that day a few weeks ago when I didn’t want to go to school? ”
I nodded, quickly recalling the tears that had baptized our breakfast table that fitful morning.
“Well, when I was crying and telling you how I wanted to stay home, you reminded me that Jesus would be with me in kindergarten all day long. So, when I walked past our nativity scene and saw that little Baby Jesus sitting in his manger, I thought I’d just take him to school for one day. You know, to remind me that the real Jesus is with me, too. Even though I can’t see him….”
Hannah shrugged her shoulders and let her voice trail off. And I laughed out loud at the beautiful thought of my little girl smuggling that pudgy plastic Jesus into kindergarten so she could remember that her Savior was with her. For real.
That’s a reminder we all need now and then.
No matter where we go, Jesus is with us.
No matter how we feel, Jesus is for us.
The One who came wrapped in wrinkles on that first Christmas night still wraps us in his love wherever we are.
And His love can’t be lost or undone.
“For I have every confidence that nothing—not death, life, heavenly messengers, dark spirits, the present, the future, spiritual powers, height, depth, nor any created thing—can come between us and the love of God revealed in the Anointed, Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:28)
That’s what Christmas is all about, dear friends.
Perfect Love storming our imperfect lives.
The grip of grace taking hold of our quaking hearts.
Heaven’s hope leading us home.
And whether or not our Christmas season has unfolded as we’d hoped. Whether or not we’ve got presents stashed beneath our tree or stockings hanging on our mantle , we all have reason to smile.
Because Christmastime brings good news of great joy for all people. For frightened kindergartners and exasperated mamas, for the lonely, the love-sick, the hurting, the happy.
Jesus is with us.
Jesus is with us.
For real.
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