When we were visiting in Michigan, Dennis pointed out the nativity set to me. “Notice what’s missing?” As I looked, I saw the regular characters: three kings, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, and a lamb, cow, camel, and donkey. Even an angel. And, of course, there was the stable and the manger. But looking more closely, I saw that the manger was empty. We had a similar incident this year at our house. The soft cloth nativity that we have was also missing Jesus. Oh, we did find Him again after some searching, fallen back into a box with some other Christmas decorations.

I began to think about the missing Jesus at Christmas time. It is easy for all of us to have gathered around us all the “trimmings” of Christmas: the tree, the gifts, the lights, the food, and even family and friends, and yet Jesus can be missing from the middle of it. Jesus is central to Christmas. The Bible never mentions a donkey in connection with Christmas. The Bible never mentions a camel in connection with Christmas. But it clearly tells of the Son of God, come into our world, born to die in our place, paying the penalty for our sins.

The missing Jesus: He may not just be missing from the nativity sets, but from our hearts and lives also. The apostle John said it in these words:

JN 1:10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed
in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

The world missed Him. The world continues to miss Him. How can we find the missing Jesus in our lives? We need to receive Him into the manger of our hearts.

Why "Willing Captive"?

Willing Captive is a reference to Exodus 21.

Ex 21:5 "But if the servant declares, `I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life."

It is our desire that our worship of God be expressive of a bondservant relationship with Jesus. Our worship seeks to be a pouring out of love to our God with an un-divided heart. In worship, we are living out what it means to belong to God. Using the scriptural picture of the bondservant, we have come to the doorpost and laid down our rights in unconditional surrender. We are unrestrained in our love for God. We have come to the place of abandonment and commitment to Him. The “doorpost” is a place marked by blood. The blood of being “earmarked” as a bondservant mirrors the other blood that marks the doorpost – the blood of the Lamb that was sacrificed and whose blood purchased us from slavery and has set us on this journey. We follow now, looking to God’s presence like Israel followed the pillar of cloud and fire.