Into My Heart

We’re celebrating Christmas–lite this year: No Christmas tree. Only some bright poinsettias and a few of Carolyn’s “set-arounds” in our living room., 

It was my job again this year to set up the small olive-wood crèche we bought in Bethlehem years ago and arrange it on our living room coffee table. As I unwrapped each piece I came across the tiny carving of the Christ-child and remembered a Christmas, long, long ago, when our granddaughter, Melanie, was very small. 

Melanie was wandering and “wondering” her way around our living room, gazing intently at Carolyn’s decorations, when she came to the little, olive wood crèche. She stood transfixed for a moment. Then she reached out, picked up the carving of the little Lord Jesus and drew it to her heart. She closed her eyes and whispered softly, “Baby Jesus, sleep,” and rocked the little figure in her hands. 

 

Tears sprang to my eyes. 

I could not have told you then what I was feeling, or why I was moved so deeply, but I knew that something profoundly stirring had occurred. Later I realized why my heart was so deeply touched by her simple gesture: it was symbolic of that childlike act in which we take up the wonderful gift of God’s love, our Lord Jesus, and draw him into our hearts. 

There is a song that children sing, and adults too, once they get over their fear of being childlike:

Into my heart, into my heart;

Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.

Come in today; come in to stay;

Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. 

And so it is today: “Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.”

David Roper

12.16.20