Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything, even the beautiful. ~Victor Hugo

Our family has Christmas traditions you won’t find in The Saturday Evening Post. A White Rabbit candy box has been used for nearly thirty years to hide surprise packages. Whoever receives it has to pass it along the next year. The ladies of the house make peanut butter crackers to dip in melted chocolate on Christmas Eve. And all of the men receive duct tape.
The tape was a big joke until the year Cousin Jerry’s car broke down. Jerry is a mechanical genius and he whipped out the duct tape in the back seat to make a fix until he could get back to town. Then he knew the great worth of the present.
Jesus was born in a hole-in-the-wall village. His parents were poor, his birth questionable, and his circumstances unsavory. He looked like the kind of present you chuck in the back seat and forget about.
But then, your life breaks down; you look behind the seat, in the trunk, down in the cracks with the jack. . . and you find HIM. Just the present you need to fix the mess you’re in. You pull off a small piece at first and wrap it around your broken heart. Then yank off a longer piece, tear it off with your teeth in your hurry to stop the pain, and affix the tape to the breaking heart of your life.
The duct tape holds. It’s just what you need. The perfect gift that you’ve had all along and never even knew you needed.
Won’t you let Jesus be your duct tape this Christmas?
Who can believe what we have heard,
and for whose sake has the Lord’s arm been revealed?
He grew up like a young plant before us,
like a root from dry ground.
He possessed no splendid form for us to see,
no desirable appearance.
He was despised and avoided by others;
a man who suffered, who knew sickness well.
Like someone from whom people hid their faces,
he was despised, and we didn’t think about him.
It was certainly our sickness that he carried,
and our sufferings that he bore,
but we thought him afflicted,
struck down by God and tormented. Isaiah 53:1-4 CEB