I see they are now selling strings of Christmas tree lights with built-in computer chips which play a tune as lights blink. Want one?

What really makes Christmas meaningful to you? What images, what ornaments of cheer? We do so much want this season to cheer us. What images will help us the most?

Interestingly, when God spoke to the people of old to cheer them with the message of Christmas, it was not a tree He spoke of nor its lights. He spoke of a branch and its lineage. It is a peculiar image because God presented it through the prophet Jeremiah, whom He sent to Judah in order to let them know they would be cut down by Babylon due to their sin. Jeremiah hated to tell the people that message. He is often called the weeping prophet as a result. Yet through his tears a hope still glistened in the image of this branch. When you understand that image you can know some of the special cheer and grace that this season holds for all the year and all our lives, even when our sin and failures would threaten to make us weep as well.

At the intersection of Clayton and Ballas Streets in St. Louis, there is a tree growing. It is not a very grand tree. It really is just a sprout growing out of the concrete. On the little triangular island of raised curb where they mounted the yield sign for traffic turning right, this twig has somehow taken root in a crack. It is a most forlorn-looking thing, particularly at this time of year. It is surrounded by yards and yards of barren concrete, dwarfed by the traffic signs that tower above it; long since de-leafed by the winter cold, it is whipped by the winds of passing cars. It is the most ignorable little stick you could possibly happen to notice. And yet I noticed it.

A year ago at Christmas time we drove home from some shopping trip to the mall where the lights glittered and the music blared, and the twig caught my eye. A piece of tinsel had been blown from some neighboring trash can or outdoor display and had entwined in the tiny branches of the twig. And as the winter wind lashed the sprout into a frenzied flutter, it seemed to wave the tinsel as a banner that spoke to me more clearly of Christmas than any of the glitz we had spent the day enjoying.

The tinsel was really just a cast-off of the season, yet its very presence signalled that it was Christmas again. The tinsel was a token of the time of year and all it represented. It was again time for rejoicing that the Christ child had been born. It was just tinsel, but I thought it was so special that out of all His creation that day God had chosen to decorate this insignificant, ugly little sprout with a shred of tinsel. God had picked up that discarded sliver of silver and put it in the hair of an ugly twig to make it beautiful to Himself, a wonderful beacon for any of us who would notice. Though the branch was insignificant it signalled the time of year and reminded of the child who came to save.

It is so typical of our God to act this way -- to make the forlorn glorious. Ultimately it's the message of Christmas, and the message of this passage, that God provides tinsel for twigs; the ignored, the ugly, the despised of this world He decorates with a special beauty. We need to see this message again this time of year for all the times of every year when we feel ignored, ugly and despicable. God can provide tinsel for us twigs, too.