The story doesn't end with the Nativity

The subject came up in my last "Seekers" Zoom video Sunday school class of 2024 - December 22, as a matter of fact. We were winding up our year before a two-week holiday break and contemplating scriptures about the birth of Jesus Christ that we had contemplated initially the week before.

One of my classmates began discussing what we all knew: Christmas (and Christ) are about much more than just a baby who was born in Bethlehem about 2000 years ago to a virgin.

Don't get me wrong, folks: I love the Christmas story. My parents had a Nativity scene that was under our tree for many years until the cardboard barn wore out.

I remember visiting a "live" Nativity scene in greater Cincinnati as a youth when I visited my maternal grandparents.

The Christmas story is fascinating to me in many ways. It is a crucial part of our faith.

But this marvelous birth is far from the end of the story. In fact, it's not even close to the end of the story.

Jesus grew up past the exciting, troubling, and inspiring events of his early years to become a teacher, a prophet, and a man who walked among us but embodied the characteristics of a Higher Power - his Heavenly Father.

A man who would sacrifice his own life through an extremely painful death, appear to his closest followers after his resurrection, and ascend to Heaven. A man who is coming once again at a point in time now unknown to gather his own into eternal life.

That's just the "tip of the iceberg" of what Jesus of Nazareth accomplished when he walked among us.

Christianity is not always about following a set of man-made "rules". It is, however, about following the guidance of God's son and of the apostles and disciples who followed him - from the time he lived centuries ago through the 2020s and beyond.

I am certainly no apostle. But I am a disciple. I invite you to live this life with me. The challenges are great, but the quality of life is a state of mind that you could only dream of.

When you are a Christian, your world view changes. Let's view our world differently and "march to the beat of a different drummer".