You can't talk about just the manger. The next icon I want to address is the cross. For a lot of us we would rather keep Jesus in the manger. Who is afraid of a baby? No one is ever challenged by a baby or convicted by a baby. Oh, goo, goo, ga, ga. We all love babies, no problem. Yet, Jesus did not remain a baby, did He? He grew and became a man. For the first thirty years of His life, He was a carpenter. He was a man's man, not some pale figure like you see in some classic paintings. No, no, no. We are talking about a carpenter, someone who did the foundation work all the way to the finish out. And at thirty years of age, He began His public ministry and His hands and feet were pounded to the cross for your sins and mine, something we don't deserve. So Christmas, yes, is a manger thing followed by a cross thing. When we look at the manger, we have got to have an eye on the cross.

So the question is, what have you done with the star, the manger and the cross? You either embrace it, receive it and bow the knee to it or you can spin on your heels and go the other way and reject it. What is it going to be for you?

A couple of years ago someone asked me what was my favorite Christmas of all time. I said that was a no brainer for me. When I was in the seventh grade, my brothers and I ran down the steps and we were looking at everything that we had gotten for Christmas, playing with this, playing with that. And then my parent's said, €Ed, look outside in the front yard.€ And they drew the curtains back and I looked and to my amazement, there it was. A K-Mart special, 12-foot aluminum fishing boat. I said, €Mom, Dad, thank you so much.€

My favorite thing is the world to do is fish. We lived about a nine iron away from a beautiful lake. So everyday I would come home from school, jump in my boat, paddle out and catch those large mouth bass. One day though I walked down to the lake, got ready to push the boat into those coffee black waters and the boat plug was gone. Ed Young Pastor says that if you know anything about fishing or boating, it is a bad thing when the boat plug is gone. So I wigged out. I went home and told Mom and she and I jumped into the station wagon and looked all over that little city of Columbia, SC for a K-Mart special boat plug to fit my aluminum fishing boat. Three weeks go by and we still had not found the plug. Did that stop me from fishing? No way. I am a hard core angler. I used socks, I used Hubba Bubba bubble gum, I used stick and Playdough and tried to stop up that hole in the boat. I would get everything OK and paddle out about 50 yards and then realize that the boat was sinking. Then I would paddle back, dump the water out and do the drill over and over again. It was bad. I hated it.