December 25th is less than two weeks away, and I’m not ready, so I thought I’d do some shopping this afternoon. We’ve scaled our Christmas down to very few gifts with the siblings drawing one name each and buying for that person only. It doesn’t make for a very big pile of presents under the tree, but that might not be a problem anyway. We haven’t got a Christmas tree.

I drove to the closest Wal-Mart, a 36 mile round trip. Despite the Salvation Army ringer at the door and lots of Christmasy stuff inside, I couldn’t get into the swing of it all. Wandering up and down the rows, I passed the men’s cologne and felt sad to know I wasn’t shopping for Nate this year. Most men are hard to buy for, and Nate was no exception, but I was wishing I could try one more time. I ended up buying a Christmas present for Jack (rawhide bones). Everything else in my basket was groceries. I suppose shopping will be fun again eventually.

As I motored home on the expressway, the orchestra in my CD player was playing “O Holy Night”, and I enjoyed losing myself in thoughts of Jesus’ birth. How old was he when he realized he was going to have to die an excruciating death that required him to become the sins of all of us? Surely he was aware of it when he voluntarily left heaven (where he was 100% divine) to be changed into a human baby. Was he reduced down to the level of one cell? After all, he was human, and that’s how we all got started.

I hope somehow after Jesus had been born a baby and was a growing little guy that he’d “forgotten” about his eventual death for the souls of the world. To have such knowledge as a young child would have been a burden too great to bear. No doubt his Father gave information to him in bite sized pieces. Jesus’ Father used that same method with us. Our family had a death, too, and God showed us only what we needed to know for each day as it came, just one bite at a time. It was best that way and was probably done like that for Jesus, too.

Rounding the last bend on the highway before my exit, I had to stand on the brakes. Police cars were pulling up to an accident scene in the right lane, and one cop was using a flare to wave drivers into the far left, away from the newly-arrived emergency vehicle and fire truck. Flares were being lit and set down like construction cones to coax traffic away from the accident. As we drove by, I saw a paramedic standing next to a body on the road. It was covered with a sheet, all the way over the head.

As I’d driven along, I’d been thinking of Jesus’ death, Nate’s death, and now here was one more. It gave me a chill as I passed and looked at that lump on the road. Maybe that person had been Christmas shopping, too. The incident had just happened, and I wondered if the police had had a chance to call his or her next-of-kin yet. Maybe the family was making dinner, playing Christmas carols, planning to go out later this evening and have some fun. It made me shudder to think of the call they were about to receive, the shock they were going to have to bear.

In reality, none of us will leave this life any other way. As the world ponders the coming of the Christ child and the real reason he came to earth,which was to die for us, we can rejoice in knowing the cross he died on ended up empty, just like his tomb, because death was not the end of his story. Jesus lives today, which is the reason we can live after death, too, but we need to embrace him as our Savior. We need to be ready.

Tonight, rather than thinking of what gifts won’t be under what tree, it might be good to think about the person under the sheet. Was he ready? Are we?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)