Christmas 2008 Message from the Frys

Christmas Message from the Frys

Dear Friends,

At this time of the year we think of gingerbread, cloves, and cinnamon, fragrant candles, burning logs, and the sappy whiffs of freshly cut pines. More than any other holiday, Christmas has its own unique set of smells. It's so appropriate, for here's how a prophecy in Psalm 45 describes the Savior: "All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, by which they have made You glad. "

Two ideas emerge here about Christmas: The Lord Jesus was sent and He was scented. He came to earth, leaving heaven's ivory palaces and bearing the fragrance of salvation and the perfume of peace.

Of course, for Mary and Joseph, the smells of Christmas were odors rather than fragrances. Instead of pine, cinnamon, and gingerbread, they got a nose full of manure, hay, and livestock-not to mention the body odor of unbathed shepherds. Jesus wasn't born in the perfumed beds of royalty. He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. Wrapped in swaddling clothes, He was laid in the feeding bin of a rude, damp barn.

The reality of it comes home to us when we recall the experience of Geoffrey T. Bull, British missionary to Tibet. He was seized by Communists and forced to march across frozen mountains until he despaired of life. Late one evening, entering a village, his captors gave him a small room warmed by a charcoal brazier. Just as he began to thaw, they ordered him downstairs to feed the horses. In the cold stables below the house, his boots squished in the manure and straw. The fetid smell of animals was nauseating.

"Then as I continued to grope my way in the darkness." he later wrote, "it suddenly flashed into my mind. It's Christmas Eve! I stood suddenly still in that Oriental manger. To think that my Savior was born in a place like this. To think that He came all the way from heaven to some wretched eastern stable and, what is more, to think that He came for me. I returned to the warm, clean room which I enjoyed even as a prisoner, and bowed in thankfulness and worship."

Perhaps the next time we get a whiff of pine, cinnamon, or gingerbread we should think of hay, livesrock. and manure. What a contrast! What a Savior!

How remarkable that Christ never wrote a book, never held an office, never went to college, never traveled widely, never did one of the things that accompanies greatness. Yet His Word, falling on responsive hearts in every generation, has changed the world many times over.

In John 12, Mary took a pound of costly oil of spikenard and anointed Jesus. The house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Judas, soon to betray Him, grumbled about it. But Jesus replied, "Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. " And so the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. His friends turned away. One denied Him. Jesus was arrested and sentenced, and the next morning He was affixed by nails between heaven and earth. Three days later. He arose from the dead.

Twenty centuries have passed, and the fragrance of His life still sweetens the world. It's been said that all the armies that ever marched, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned have not affected the earth as has this one solitary life.

Furthermore, the fragrance of His life should be absorbed and conveyed through each one of us. "Now thanks be to God, " said Paul, "who ... through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.... Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma" (II Cor. 2:14,15; Eph. 5:2). This is the true smell of Christmas-aromatic people who, through the Spirit of Christ, perfume the world.

Just like Jesus, we are scented and we are sent. The smells of Christmas aren't burning logs and candles, but burning hearts and lights shining before men. Through us Christ diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. That's what turns the holiday into a holy day.

This Christmas, put on the perfume of God's peace and the cologne of His care. Let your life be scented with His presence. It's better than gingerbread and pine. It is the aroma of the Almighty. It's the true scent of Christmas.

May the fragrance of our Savior's love be with you throughout this season and the coming year,

Pastor Walter and Mary Ann Fry

Midtown Church meets at the Capital Senior Center on Park Circle, behind Maxcy Gregg Park, Sabbath (Saturday) Morning at 10 AM for Sabbath School and 11:15 AM for the Worship Hour. Please come and join us for fellowship and worship.