Scene one.  A newborn baby, embraced and fed by his young mother in a strange place among strange people, in Bethlehem, a small village of Judah, far from family and friends.

Scene two.  A condemned man dying as cursed by his own people on a cross outside Jerusalem.

Can there be more striking contrasting pictures?  A small baby in his mother’s arms on the one hand and a rejected man dying on Roman Cross, condemned by Israel and Rome, on the other.

No wonder the earth shook as Jesus died there, a horrible death for a reason few understood.  The clash of forces that day reverberated through earth and heaven.

These are not scenes from a far-off place of people we do not know at all.  That same contrast between love and rejection mark the world today.  That becomes vividly evident at this season of the year when many may have no problem with Jesus as a baby, while they shrug off the meaning of the Cross entirely!

There is a strange beauty of Jesus being born among animals.  There is jarring reality as people reject Jesus and nail him to a cross!

May we who love Jesus with all our hearts see through all this and adore the mercy of God that makes sense of it all, more profound than life itself. Without the sacrificial death of Jesus, we would have no hope at all, none.  Accepting Him as our personal Savior gives us hope beyond telling!  That is the picture.