Ornaments.

Another NHC Student Ministry Blog

I love Christmas ornaments! In our family we each have our own
Christmas ornaments. Some are store-bought and engraved, while others
are twenty-year-old glitter-covered pieces of construction paper cut
to resemble trees. My favorite is one that probably dates back to
1984, and it is simply a piece of pipe cleaner attached to part of an
egg carton. Of all the artwork I’ve done over the years, my mom has
kept the stuff from pre-school to decorate the tree!

Decorating the Christmas tree is a tradition that comes from Europe,
and can be traced back to Martin Luther. Legend has it, Luther was
walking in the woods, and he saw the stars shining through the branches
of an evergreen tree. He brought a tree home and decorated it with
candles to illustrate to his children what he had seen.

There are many references to stars in the Bible. Ask Job. It’s pretty
easy to see a theme develop with God communicating His love for man
using the sky. Here are a couple of thoughts I’d like to focus on:

In Genesis 22, God promises Abraham that his descendants will be ” as
numerous as the stars in the sky”.

In Psalm 147, the writer declares that the Lord “determines the number
of the stars and calls them each by name”.

I’d like to paint a picture for you. It’s a Norman Rockwell piece of
an elderly man gently hanging ornaments on a giant tree that fills the
entire room of his palatial estate. At first you notice the size of
the tree and the room. As you peer closer you notice that there are
already thousands of ornaments on the tree gleaming in the light, with
boxes yet to be unpacked. Finally, with eyes squinted you see that
each ornament is hand carved, hand painted, and uniquely labeled with
various names.

What if we are the ornaments on God’s tree?

What if each one of us is handmade, individually named, sitting on
the tree that God is using to decorate His home?

This has a profound impact on my life. When I start to look at myself
as a treasure of God, when I start to look at my life as something
that brings him joy when put on display, I am completely humbled. I
have a place on God’s tree. I am a part of His family. There is so
much beauty in an individual ornament. But, as special as each
memento may be, there is nothing like seeing hundreds of thousands of
them together. And there I am…an ornament on the same tree as
David, Moses, Solomon, Peter, Matthew, Stephen…

Jesus.

I hope you find joy this Christmas in knowing that we have a Lord that
knows every one of the stars He has named.

one love, one heart,
d.j.