'Mary' Christmas

We’re doing something different in our house this Christmas.

We still put up our Christmas tree two weeks before Christmas day, our children will still be hanging up their stockings at the end of their beds on Christmas Eve, and my wife will still be baking all the special recipes she brought over from England when we immigrated. And we’ll still be watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

But this year we will be adding another tradition. We will be making a concerted effort not only to remember and honor the Christ-child born in Bethlehem, but to remember and honor His holy mother. We will be finding as many ways as possible to make this not simply a merry Christmas, but a Mary Christmas.

If you are one of my evangelical readers, please don’t panic. I’m not about to turn Roman Catholic. Nor am I about to start worshiping Mary. But what Esther and I will be doing is repenting for failing to show proper adoration to Mary for most of our adult life.

But why? Why has this suddenly become important to me?

The answer to this question lies in some experiences I had in the last year and a half which God used to help me re-assess the role that Mary ought to play in our piety and devotional lives.

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