What Christmas is All About

On Sunday we had our annual Christmas play. This years play was special in a way that I am not sure any one at my church even stopped to think about. I will explain that in my post :) First I will tell you a little bit about the play.

The play was written by our song director with different songs taken from majesty plays that Ron Hamilton put together. The name of the play was "The Candy Shoppe". It was a story of Mrs. Baxter (played by Sarah) who had two kids, Suzy and Bobby. (Kimmy and Elliott) There was a grumpy old man named Mr. Thompson (Mr. Malfi) who wanted to turn their candy shop, that had been in the town for 15 years, into a laundry service. To make a semi-long story short, the little girl, suzy, gets into a sledding accident and Mr. Thompson sees her and it reminds him of when his wife and daughter had been killed. Mrs. Baxter witnesses to Mr. Thompson at the hospital and he eventually gets saved. The candy shoppe is saved and Mr. Thompson adds on to the building to add his laundry service.

Although the story was great, and the singing was good, I thought the characters in the play had the greatest effect me. As I began to think about the characters in our play, it made me realize where they all had come from.

Elliott and Kimmy are the only two that have grown up in our church. The rest of the cast was saved in our church because of people in our church. It kind of blew me away when I began to think about the stories behind all of the members of the cast.

Mr. Malfi was saved at a wedding that we had at our church many years ago. He has been a blessing to me in the "Math" department in helping me when I've needed help.

Sarah came to church as a result of a family in our church selling a house to her and her dad. She was eventually saved and her and her dad faithfully attend our church and she is involved in several things at church.

Tyler, the narrator, had the most meaning to me as I thought about it. He came to several Christmas plays before he was saved. My friend Adam invited him to church several times. I even offered to try to fix his computer if he brought it to church and stayed for the service. Shortly after I left for college last year, Tyler was saved at a youth rally. He has grown to be a very good friend. He has a burden to see his family saved. Knowing that he goes through many difficulties not being in a Christian home, it has made me more and more thankful to have the blessing of being born and raised into a Christian home.

All of that was the biggest blessing to me this year and reminded me of what Christmas is all about. How Jesus sent his son to be born of Mary to live 33 years and die on the cross to pay for the sins of the whole world. He came all the way for us so that all we would have to do is reach out and accept the greatest gift given - Salvation.

From left: Tyler, Mr. Malfi, Elliott, Sarah, Kimberly

Our wonderful choir!

I will end the post with my favorite song from the play. The song is called, "Then Love Came Down"

On a hillside far away

in the twilight cold and grey

from the realm of endless day

came the Lord of all

From the heart of God above

came a perfect love

Jesus stepped from heaven’s hall to a lowly cattle stall. 

Then love came down wrapped up in a baby’s birth God gave the best that he could give and sent his son to earth to this world of sin and wrong came the music of heaven’s song in sin we were bound then love came down

All our hope had died within

crushed and cast aside by sin

in our hearts no room for him

on that holy night

Angel voices filled the sky

praising God on high

Jesus left his rightful place

bringing us AMAZING GRACE.

Then love came down wrapped up in a baby’s birth God gave the best that he could give and sent his son to earth to this world of sin and wrong came the music of heaven’s song in sin we were bound then love came down.