The Whole Story

The beauties of the Christmas season surround us: colorful decorations, sparkling lights, joyful times with family and friends, holiday songs that we have grown to love through the years, stories about the birth of the Christ child.

A beauty even more poignant follows the Christmas story. Immediately after relating the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, Luke describes his dedication of the temple, when Mary and Joseph took the infant Jesus “to present him to the Lord.” At this time the elderly Simeon, filled with the Holy Spirit, foretold both the salvation he would bring and the sorrow that would result from his coming; he included a personal warning to Mary: “A sword will pierce even your own soul.”

Long before Simeon, King David had prophesied the crucifixion of the Messiah. Psalm 22 says:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? . . .

Be not far from me, for trouble is near,

there is none to help.

Many bulls have surrounded me . . .

They open their mouth wide at me

like a ravening, roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,

all my bones are out of joint;

My heart is like wax;

it is melted within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd,

my tongue cleaves to my jaws,

and you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs have surrounded me;

a band of evildoers has encompassed me;

they pierced my hands and my feet;

I can count all my bones.

They look, they stare at me.

They divide my garments among them,

and cast lots for my clothes.”

In his gospel, John pictures Mary at the cross, witnessing the crucifixion of her firstborn Son: “Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother’s sister Mary, wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” And the prophecy of Simeon echoes: “A sword will pierce even your own soul.”

As we partake of this bread, representing Jesus’ broken body, and this fruit of the vine, representing his shed blood, let’s remember that the Christmas story is not complete without the crucifixion. This precious Son of God, who came to live with us, also came to die for us. “O come, let us adore him.”

Scriptures from Luke 2:22-35; Psalm 22:1, 11-18, John 19:35

Ruth Ann Warren christir.org