Jesus wasn’t at our house this Christmas.

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Baby Jesus the figurine, that is.

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I have to admit I was rather disappointed.  I’ve never forgone the manger scene before.  It’s one of those things that I feel like I need to have out, to be able to celebrate Christmas.  When I bought our scene, I was particular about how it looked.  It had to have just the right feel to it.  Nothing too abstract or too simplistic.  Something realistic- perhaps with a renaissance or baroque period flare.  Since the time of purchase, some of the players in our scene suffered minor accidents.  I believe a wise man once lost his head (easily fixed with glue) and several of the characters have been chipped or scratched.  Par for the course when you have 4 young children.  However, this year, we had to make some major changes.  Let me tell you why.

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Our two year old son has sensory processing disorder.  As a result, he can be unpredictable.  He can spin out of control pretty easily.  When that happens, he often tries to throw things.  Actually, even when he’s not out of control he tends to throw things.  It’s one of the ways he receives sensory input and makes sense of his world.  We attend OT, and hope to one day get his system regulated to the point where he can interact with his environment like a typical child.  Until then, we make adaptations.

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Our Christmas tree was hidden behind a set of french doors, along with the presents.  Other decorations were placed out of his reach.  We made sure none of them would shatter, because even though you can put a ceramic snowman out of reach on the mantle, you can’t guarantee the snow man won’t be hit by a flying object that did happen to be within reach.  Thus, the manger scene had to remain in its box this year, swaddled safely in bubble wrap and surrounded by hay.

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As I said, I was disappointed, but what kept me from being depressed over the whole matter, was an interesting snippet from the story of Naaman in the Bible.

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Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel; so accept now a present from your servant.” But he said, “As the LORD lives, before whom I stand, I will receive none.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused. Then Naaman said, “If not, please let there be given to your servant two mules’ load of earth, for from now on your servant will not offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god but the LORD.-  2 Kings 5:15-17

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What’s that have to do with my Christmas decorations?  Stay with me here.  In this dialogue, we see Naaman speaking to his new best friend, the prophet Elisha.  And when I say “new”, I mean it.  A few verses before, Naaman was pretty mad at Elisha for what he perceived as disrespect.  Naaman was a pretty important official, and he had come to Elisha to be healed.  Elisha sent him instructions for his healing second hand, but didn’t bother to come out and greet Naaman in person.  Naaman was so mad about this, he almost didn’t follow Elisha’s directions, but his servants finally convinced him otherwise, and he was healed of both his leprosy and his bad attitude.  The interesting part comes when he requested two mules’ load of earth because he wanted to acknowledge the God of Israel as the one true God by making sacrifices to him only.  Huh?  What’s with the dirt?

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Back in the day, people believed each city had it’s own protective god.  That god preferred to be worshiped on their own turf, and you would therefore go into the city (often named after said god) and make your sacrifices there.  When someone wanted to worship a particular god, they started carting around the dirt of the god’s special city, so they could worship him or her anywhere.  Ha ha ha.  Doesn’t that sound silly????

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I’d be chuckling harder at this folly if I didn’t realize that, in a sense, we do this today.  Sometimes we have a hard time worshiping God outside of a church building, or some other “religious” setting.  Sometimes we feel like we can’t worship God without the right set up.  The right tools.  The right Bible.  The right noise level.  The right lighting.  The right music.  The right people.  The right denominational name.  The right decorations.  The right manger scene.  The right dirt.

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I realized that my worship at Christmas time was much more than how I decorated my house.  My worship included showing God to my children.  By removing things that could cause strife in our relationship and detract from what we really needed to be focusing on, I avoided setting my son up for failure.  I wanted him to be able to see Jesus the Savior, not Jesus-the-figurine-that-Mommy’s-always-yelling-at-me-about.  So, I had to celebrate Christmas on different grounds this year.  Different dirt.  But that’s ok, because even if the dirt wasn’t the same, the Savior was- and that’s what mattered.