I can’t ever remember not knowing that Christmas is about Jesus. From my earliest years gathered around the tree, I was aware of Jesus being born in a manger, Emmanuel had come.

But knowing that Christmas is about Jesus, and really celebrating Jesus at Christmas, are two very different experiences. It’s taken a lifetime of practice for me, and I’m still at it… so I thought I’d share about my experience this year. 

There are so many reasons to celebrate that Jesus was born, and I am so grateful for all of them. The wonders of WHO HE IS are vast and beyond comprehension… but this year I am especially grateful that Jesus is my Redeemer.  

When I was growing up, I can remember the one main fact I learned about Jesus. It went something like this… ‘Jesus was born in a manger to die on the cross to save me from my sins so that I can go to heaven.’

That fact, or I should say, that TRUTH, has enormous life-changing impact. But like many, I heard it as part of my Sunday School lessons and pretty much kept it there until later at 8 years old, I decided to make it more personal.  It was then that I made a decision to receive Jesus as my Savior, but I really had no idea what I was doing or the impact He would make in my life.

And that is ok, because much like a baby is born without understanding, so I was born into new life in Jesus.  And much like a baby grows up, over the years, I have grown to understand and experience more of WHO HE is.  And with that, the more my Christmas celebration has become about Him!

My growth has certainly not been of my own doing.  It is by the grace of God, the revelation of His Word and the presence of the Holy Spirit that I have moved beyond the world’s version of Christmas. And I am so grateful. 

But like I said, this year the Lord has especially pointed me to ponder and savor that Jesus is my Redeemer. 

God is so interesting in how He leads us and teaches us… for me, He most often uses His Word, but He will also often couple His Word with experiences that give it a louder voice in my ear, a bigger picture in my eyes and most importantly a deeper influence in my heart.

Sometimes these experiences would seem totally unrelated, until God gets in there and starts speaking and pointing.  And so He did this fall… as I received a diagnosis of skin cancer.

See there was this little spot on my chest… it had been there quite a while. I was aware of it and as a long-time beach loving girl, knew I needed to get it checked… but life moved fast and the days went by.  I had great intention, but I was busy, so I told myself I would make an appointment once our new health insurance kicked in. 

That happened this fall, so in early September I found myself sitting in the dermatologist office.  And as the doctor walked in the door and kindly asked me why I had come, I pointed to the spot on my chest… and he surprisingly said, “Oh I saw that from across the room when I walked in the door.”

I was shocked!  It was a very small spot, maybe a half an inch wide if that. But he saw it immediately. 

That day involved a biopsy that proved very painful to heal…  and a later diagnosis of skin cancer. I wasn’t surprised, but I was concerned… mostly about the pain involved to cut it out. See if the biopsy had been that painful, I couldn’t imagine what removing it altogether would feel like.

Now you might be thinking… “I thought this was about Jesus being your Redeemer…”  and I promise you it is… be encouraged and keep reading… it will all make sense soon.

So several weeks later, I went in to have the spot removed… but the doctor decided to try a topical treatment instead. Basically, over a period of 8 weeks, I was to apply this cream to my chest and it was going to draw the cancer cells to the surface and kill them.  Sounded simple enough to me.  I was so relieved, but I had no idea what I was in for…

The process  started off simply, but the more the cream was applied, the bigger the spot became.  What began as a half inch spot, turned into a space of about 4-5 inches in diameter.  It was like a chemical burn and it was very painful!

I was aware of the pain all day long.  I felt it all through the night.  It affected what I could wear, it soiled my clothes.  It was ugly and painful and I was miserable.

But the reality was, this process was actually doing something good. It was bringing healing.

Now before I go any further, I want you to know I only showed you that picture because the Lord very clearly instructed me to do so.  See one morning I sensed Him urging me to write this blog and I had this knowing that I was to include the picture of my chest that I had taken for my doctor. But I was like, “I can’t include that picture in the blog, it will gross people out.”  As I privately wrestled through those thoughts, later that morning, my husband came home from a prayer walk and he said to me, “I was praying for you, and I think you are supposed to write a blog about your chest and include a picture.”

So what do you do with that?  You obey God and include the picture!

I apologize if the picture grossed you out, it does me too.  But if you are reading this, I think God has something for you, so I hope you won’t stop now…

Because, I believe God wants me to share how He  used this skin cancer experience this fall, to help me celebrate even more deeply the reality that Jesus is my Redeemer this Christmas. 

And I am so thankful that He is! See these are some of the things God has been impressing on my heart:

SIN IS UGLY. Cancer was never supposed to be a part of our experience in life, and  sin wasn’t either. Both have a way of coming in and taking over.  And when they are exposed, what is revealed is never pretty.

SIN SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED. Years ago the Lord impressed upon me that sin never gets better.  If you don’t deal with it, it only gets worse. You won’t just outgrow it.  And it won’t just get better. I waited a long time to deal with my skin cancer and it only made it worse.  And so it is with sin. 

SIN IS ALSO BIGGER THAN WE THINK. We have a tendency to minimize sin and think of it as ‘no big deal’ …. but the reality is, just like my skin cancer, sin usually runs way deeper and is much bigger than we realize.

SIN IS MORE OBVIOUS THAN WE REALIZE TOO. Just like my skin cancer was obvious to my doctor from across the room, so our sin is obvious to Jesus and possibly to others as well.

AND SIN NEEDS TO BE EXPOSED. Once my cancer cells were brought to the surface, they could be dealt with. And sin has to be exposed as well if it is really going to be healed.  The light of Christ will reveal sin and expose it for what it really is… so that healing can come.

SIN CAN BE HEALED. That is the most important impression. We don’t have to stay the way we are.  There is a cure for sin and His name is Jesus.

God sent Jesus into this world to redeem all the wreckage of sin! To take the places where we are prisoners to our mess, clean them, fix them and then set us free for His glory.  Jesus is an expert at redeeming!

I love this Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah 61:1… it is written as if Jesus is speaking about what He would come to do.

For me, receiving Christ so young, it took me years to transfer this Truth of Christmas, that Jesus was was born to redeem me, into my real life experiences.

See it is easy to keep that Truth in a childlike one dimensional religious belief and never move it over it into the raw realities of how we live and move and have our being in the day to day.

But I can remember the season in my late twenties when that transfer began to take place. I had become painfully aware of how deeply infected with sin that I really was. My thoughts were tainted with jealousy, pride, selfishness, immorality and more.  My emotions were a wreck of insecurity and presumptions that kept me bound in fear, disappointment and loneliness. And out of such I was often making choices in various areas of my life that only bound me in more struggle and shame.

But hallelujah, because I can also remember coming face to face with Jesus My Redeemer. 

See Jesus saw my depravity of soul and not only had grace for it, but truly had the solutions to change it.   

Since that time, over the last twenty some years, I have intentionally given Jesus access to deal with the sin that He sees in my life.  And I’ll be honest, it has often been quite painful, but O for my good… always!

For instance, one of the deepest places where sin affected my soul was insecurity, and when Jesus started shining a light on that, it revealed itself in many ugly ways.

Some may not think of insecurity as sin, but it is.  Because what is sin? Sin is anything where we miss the mark of God’s best plan for us.  Well, His plan for us is definitely not insecurity.  He created us in His image to be secure in His love, His identity, His plan and His provision for us. If we look for our security in other fields, it is sin.  And if we just settle into living in rhythms of insecurity, trust me, it will create all kinds of other issues.

This year as I have reflected on Jesus as My Redeemer, I am so grateful that Jesus is willing to deal with my sin. And that He really can fix it, clean it out, and replace it with new.

Because what I have found is that my sin runs very deep… and not only can I not provide forgiveness for it, I can’t fix my sinful self either.  I just don’t have what it takes. 

But when I look to Jesus and journey with Him through the process… painful as it may be, He redeems and makes me new!

This Christmas I am so thankful for Jesus because in looking back, I can see He has redeemed so much!

This experience with my chest has brought all of that to the forefront this year… God speaking loudly to me about the similarities between sin and this skin cancer mess and how He is the perfect healer, completely redeeming.

I heard a line in a SONG about Jesus the other day… it said He was on an

“endless search and rescue”

and I thought to myself, “Exactly!” Because as Redeemer, that is exactly the nature of Jesus’ redemptive work in us. Our sin is so deep that it will take a lifetime…

But He doesn’t give up! 

I went back to the doctor the other day.  Amazingly, my chest had mostly healed. New skin had come and I was so grateful.

But the doctor saw more. He realized the cancer cells span much wider than he thought before.  And so come January, I’ll have to repeat the treatment on a much wider space of my chest.

I’m not looking forward to it at all.  But I know it is for my good.

But come January, I know there are more places in me that My Redeemer will want to treat as well. He sees places of brokenness that I can’t see. He is on an endless search and rescue, bringing forth the new where sin has left its mark.

So why am I celebrating Jesus this Christmas?

oh so many reasons… but I had just had to tell you about Him being My Redeemer today. And I pray that in the doing so, you are encouraged to give Him access to redeem your sin too. I’d love to hear more of your story in the comments below.

Celebrating Jesus at Christmas is about way more than putting up a nativity scene, singing Christmas carols and making Jesus a birthday cake with your kids. It is about savoring WHO JESUS IS and inviting Him to truly be that in your life.

O come O come Emmanuel… be all that You are meant to be in us!

Christmas blessings,