Empty Manger

On this Christmas morning I see the empty manger and my mind begins to wonder. What was heaven like without Jesus?  Was it like a child away at college? You know they'll be home for the holidays, or this year perhaps they won't. Or was it like a death in the family?  A gapping hole in everyday where He had been. 

He was God unlimited! He was everything,  had everything,  could do everything,  and He emptied Himself of all that was superhuman and became confined to a small body in the hands of simple humans who didn't really know what they were holding, wrapped in swaddling cloths. His birth opened the heavens and made the angels sing,  the star's align and kings angry, but that what His presence does,  it disrupts, it changes everything.

An empty manger, an empty cross, an empty tomb. He emptied Himself of all that was his so He could fill the earth with love, peace, joy!  He made a way for every fallen human be saved through Him. He made a way where there had been no way for me. He made a way by giving up His own place in Heaven and coming to live and die here on earth.  Then He rose and one day He will come get us so that we can be together. What a Christmas that will be!