Our Daily Bread: Jesus Light of the WorldVoorbeeld

The Centerpiece of Our Lives

You will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger. -Luke 2:12

Two key characters were suddenly missing from our little town’s nativity scene—Mary and the baby Jesus. I did a doubletake as I drove by.

My first thought was to put out a missing person’s report with the local authorities, but then I didn’t quite know what I’d say. Everyone was there, but the two. We’d just had a terrible windstorm, so maybe they’d been blown away.

Then again, perhaps criminal activity was at play, and someone stole them (as strange as that may sound). Either way, the nativity scene simply wasn’t the same without them and especially without Him.

The characters in the birth narratives of Jesus are important in that they all played vital roles in the unfolding story: Joseph, a “descendant of King David” (Luke 2:4);

Mary, “to whom he was engaged” and “expecting a child” (v. 5); the shepherds, “guarding their flocks” (v. 8), and a radiant “angel of the Lord” (v. 9).

But the focus of the entire scene, the key to Christmas, the “sign” on which everything else depended way back then and still today is “the Messiah, the Lord . . . [the] baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger” (vv. 11–12).

Our lives and the roles we play in the ongoing narrative of God’s redemption story are vitally important. But the main character was, is, and always will be our beautiful Savior, Christ the Lord. He’s no longer the baby but the King who reigns forever and ever.

By John Blase

Which of the human characters in the nativity do you resonate with the most? What can you do this season and throughout the year to ensure that Christ stays the centerpiece of your life?

Jesus, thank You for inviting me into Your grand story. Help me as I seek to live so that all glory and honor always goes to You.