The Jesus~Less Nativity

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." ~Isaiah 9:6

http://youtu.be/DKk9rv2hUfA [Linus Explains the Meaning of Christmas/Charlie Brown]
http://youtu.be/O3wujkozv9E [A Baby Changes Everything/Faith Hill]

Well, it seems only fitting that the last Christmas entry for this year would be this particular one. [There will be more fun tales NEXT Christmas] For now, this seems like a perfect place to wrap up this special day and conclude the Christmas season until another year.
I don’t know how many years ago this happened - at least 10. My A.B. and I can’t pass up a sale ESPECIALLY if it has to do with angels. We collect them, namely Seraphim angels by Roman, Inc. Well, one year [about 10 years ago], Karen stopped by my office early one morning before our workday began.
"Tiara is discontinuing the Seraphim line," she told me.
Immediately, my ears perked up. "Really?" I said with a question of disbelief in my voice. "Why are they discontinuing it?"
"I don’t know," she replied. "But, it’s at least 50% off everything. What are you doing for lunch?"
I smiled. "Going down to Tiara with you!"
She laughed and nodded. "See you at five til."
"I’m there!" I assured. See, when you’re heading for a sale, it’s best to get a jump on everybody else. Even if it’s only five minutes, that extra five minutes gave us a little bit of an advantage over everyone else. In a situation such as that, an advantage is ALWAYS a good thing! I mean....50% off... For a collector, that’s like Manna from heaven!
On the drive down, we chatted about everything and nothing in particular.
She glanced over at me. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"
I smiled. "Anything that’s 50% off!"
We laughed again.
I told myself that I was only going to get two angels. I mean, one would basically be a freebie. It was my reasoning anyway. You have to understand though that this line of thinking was like a potato chip lover telling you they were only going to eat one Lays – two at most. It’s impossible to do. Still, it sounded good.
We got down to Bethesda and Karen parked the car. We held our breaths as we entered the store wondering what treasures we were about to discover? Trust me when I tell you that we both knew we were about to hit the Motherlode; it was approaching with each step we took.
We entered the store and a saleslady immediately asked if she could help us.
Karen took charge. She’s the calmer one between the two of us when a sale of such proportions regarding angels is involved and on the horizon. She’s able to hold herself together with a sense of refined decorum, unlike me who felt the small collection of foam gathering at the corners of my mouth.
"We were looking for Seraphim Angels," she said politely.
I, on the other hand and inside myself, was wildly screeching.... "Take us to them NOW!" [See why I let her take the lead on matters such as this?"]
She took hold of my arm. I think she sensed my impending over zealousness to get to the angels and gather them up while we may, so to speak. Did I say I was only planning on getting two? Yeah, well....we all know [or those who know me] know that was more for a restrained effect quality than actuality. I was taught, raised with proper decorum, even if it has tended to leave me a time or two, namely when we’re talking about 50% off discounts on things that I collect, or let me qualify that further now: collected.
There were about four rows of angels. LONG rows of angels. We did the collector’s assessment move first, which is when you patiently walk the rows of inventory to see what’s in stock and what the best deals are. For instance: if you can get 50% off an angel that regularly cost $150 vs 50% off an angel that typical sold for $45-50, which do you think is the better bargain? Of course, the exception to this rule is if you see an angel that had been on the top of your wish list for a while, and it was on that shelf for  a half-reduced rate...well, that one is a no-brainer.
Karen and I went back to that aisle prepared for collecting combat too. We didn’t carry a little hand cart. Those are for amateurs, when you’re at a sale - people who have no clue the amount of time they will waste once they fill that handcart and have to go back for a second to add more treasures. No.  We were professionals at this sort of thing. We got the large shopping cart. One for each of us. [In case I’ve not mentioned it, the Seraphim Angel boxes can be rather large - take up a lot of space. So, it was best to be prepared for any case scenario!]  Two carts should cover us both and all the thing we needed to get.  I would take Karen's overflow if she had any, or she would take mine.  It's what friends do for each other! ;-)
Now, I will say that Karen was newer to the collecting of Seraphim angels than me. I had been collecting them a full year and a half prior to her discovery of them. However, in that instant, that sale leveled the playing field, and my dear A.B. procured, in one fell swoop, what it had taken me 18 months to amass. Yes. I was ecstatic for her!
I had put four angels into my shopping cart when I spied the Nativity. This wasn’t just any nativity. It was 85% off. There was a catch. It was missing the baby Jesus.
"Huh," I said, staring at the original price and quickly calculating how much money I would be saving with 85% off. This is the ONLY time that my brain was able to solve mathematical problems in a rapid fire succession. "Look at this, the baby Jesus is missing! I wonder if they have one in the back?"
"It probably got broke or something," Karen said.   "Which is why it's so discounted."
I decided to ask anyway. Here’s the thing. You’re no worse off for asking a question like that and getting a no-can-do than not asking, because you're in the same situation anyway - a no one.  Sometimes, though, the answer can surprise you which is why you should always ask.  Come to find out, the baby Jesus had turned up missing out of that particular Nativity set.
My jaw dropped as I said to Karen. "Missing?  As in stolen? WHO would steal the baby Jesus out of the Nativity?"
"That’s weird," she agreed.
"I think there’s a special place you-know-where for someone with that kind of  audacity!" I grumbled.  "That's pretty low."
Karen tried to find the positive in that situation. "Maybe they were desperate and needed the reinforcement of just having him with them, ya know?  Something tangible.  Who knows?"
"You’re always very kind-hearted," I told her. I was ready to string them up for stealing the main character of the set, and Karen put a more compassionate spin on it.
"Well," she replied. "You never know what’s going on with anyone."
I nodded.  That was true.  you didn't.   "Hey, maybe I could call Roman when we get back to work and order the baby Jesus. It would be worth it for 85% off."
"That’s a great idea!" she agreed.
In my cart it went.  I didn't consider any other scenario.
Later that afternoon, I discovered that Roman didn’t make it a practice to sell individual pieces from a set unless something had happened to said set such as damage to something, which meant the other pieces had no active role for its original intent. Currently, they had no damaged nativity sets and not one baby Jesus’ floating around waiting to come home with me.
I went down to Karen’s office.
"Great!" I told her in a tone that was tinged with sarcasm. "I’ve got a beautiful Seraphim nativity, and it’s missing the main player! What am I going to do? I can’t put out a Jesus-less nativity!"
Her brows furrowed as she listened sympathetically. "Oh, Honey!" she lamented with me. "I’m sorry. That’s too bad. Maybe one will turn up down the road."
I nodded and went back to my office, hearing the words of my father echo in my ears: "Sometimes, if it wasn’t for bad luck...we’d have none at all."
As Christmas approached, Karen asked me what I was going to do with the nativity.
"I don’t know," I said rather glumly. "I can’t very well put it out in the main room missing the star of the event, but I hate to leave it in the box."
"I’m sure you’ll figure it out," she replied.
I nodded. "I think I’ll put it out in our bedroom, have it stand as a metaphor for how empty one’s life can be without Jesus in your life – something will always be empty and hollow if you don’t have the main player front and center where he should be."
She nodded her approval. "I think that’s a very creative approach – appropriate too."
"Thanks," I said. "It’s the best I could come up with."
"Yeah," she agreed. "But, that’s got just as important a message to it in its own way, you know?"
"Keep your eyes open for him, though, will you?  I'd rather have the original message out at Christmas than mine."
"You know I will."
Several years past with me putting the Jesus-less nativity in my bedroom and thinking about what I’d reconciled that particular nativity meant: the testament to that philosophy of how empty a life can be without God-the father~God-the son in it.  It was odd, that thought began to grow on me: how important a remembrance that thought is-should be at this time of year.  The Jesus-less nativity served a signicant purpose: a great reminder of how important it is to celebrate the one for whom this holiday season is truly about. It's a scary world out there, if you don’t have a belief in something~someone greater-grander than you are - a higher power. We didn’t just happen upon this earthy plane by mere change or happenstance. There’s too much order and design to the world for it to be some sort of cosmic fluke as some like to tell or would have us believe that it us.  My belief is that there is a divine work at play here.  You just have to view the ocean, the lake surrounded by mountains or visit the state of Maine to know that fact. [Maine is our heaven on earth....what is yours?]
A few years later, I got a couple of presents from Karen for Christmas. Among them was a small box. When I opened it, there tucked neatly inside was the Seraphim baby Jesus. I looked up at her with~in disbelief.
"How?"
She smiled. "I just kept calling every year til I hit pay dirt and someone had a broken set. They were selling the other pieces, and I said, ‘I’ve got just the friend for that Jesus!’."
We laughed about that.
That year, I put my Seraphim Angel Nativity Set front and center in my living room. I took it into work so that Karen could see me put with putty the manger of the Christ Child into place. It seemed only fitting that she share that moment with me. It felt good to see it complete for a change.
"There you go, baby Jesus!" I said. "Back where you belong!"
Karen took stock, admiring it. "Looks good, Kiddo!"
I hugged her. "I couldn’t have done it without you!"
"Well," she disagreed. "I think what you created out of it was very significant, but it’s nice to have it complete for a change. We’re a good team."
I nodded. "Yes, we are!" I agreed.
Every year, when I pull out that nativity, I think of that wonderful girlfriend shopping spree with my best A.B., but more importantly, I think about the greatest of life lesson’s that came with a purchase that most people would have probably deemed useless. It gave me many lessons:
The main one is this, which is especially significant to me at this stage in my life: just because something is broken in some way, doesn’t mean it’s worthless, useless and has no meaning. On the contrary, it can have a very special and significant meaning. Lesson number 2: if you don’t have something greater than yourself to believe in and celebrate, you’re really missing out on a loving and comforting experience when times of trouble come your way. Lastly, just because something tangible is missing from something from the exterior view, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t there. It’s there if you believe in it.  Belief doesn't require anything tangible to attest to a fact, except for one's strong faith that something unseen is as ever-present as something that can be seen.
It’s just like that song I learned when I was a child: "I believe in the sun, even when it isn’t shining; I believe in love, even when there’s no one there. And, I believe in God; I believe in God; I believe in God; even when there is silence."
As we close out this Christmas season, I thought the story of the Jesus-less nativity was an important one to share. It’s such a profound example of reminding oneself what is important about this particular holiday: Jesus. As a Christian, this is the day when the Lord came to us to bring a bright promise for a better tomorrow – to be the light that led the world into eternal life where all the long-lasting good things await: - eternal peace, love, light, no worries, no sickness...Goodness and grace abound there. That’s what this holiday is about for me. Jesus came to be the shining, stellar example of said goodness and grace and show us how to live and be good, decent, loving people when others give us reason not to want to be loving, caring, decent people. Lord knows, he suffered his trials and tribulations as he journeyed here. Still, he taught us the greatest rule to live by: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Today is a day for Christian remembrance, reflection and celebration. I look at that nativity and am reminded of all those things. It’s nice to have the main player back in the stable with his mother and father.
It truly drives home the words to my favorite gospel song: Something About That Name:
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. There’s just something about that name. Master. Savior. Jesus. Like the fragrance after the rain.
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Let all heaven and earth proclaim. Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there’s just something about that name....

http://youtu.be/AM3bAXgApKo [Something About That Name/The Gaither Vocal Band]
http://youtu.be/CxymT2s5QDs [Angels We Have Heard On High/Joy to the World/Michael Crawford]

Merry Christmas Blessings to One and All...