Firstborns and Christmas Lights

Tonight on a walk to deliver some popcorn to my wife who is babysitting some fun little kids, I saw four little girls--all sisters--busily and happily clearing away the freshly fallen snow from an elderly couple's driveway. They were outfitted in matching pink wool toques, each with a snow shovel in hand, and singing "We Want to See Jesus Lifted High." I can't think of a nicer place to be during the holidays than Caronport. After the semester is done, and exams are over, and many of the town's inhabitants have flown wherever home is for the Christmas break, there is a holy quiet that descends here. Especially on nights like these, blanketed under fresh snow.

Caronport is nicely lit up now with Christmas lights. As I look out at all the light-adorned houses, my thoughts wonder to the Exodus. Enslaved Israel prepared their houses with blood to ward off the plague of death threatening their firstborns as they anticipated their salvation. We decorate not to save a firstborn, but because we were saved by one. Our own plague of death has been warded off by a little baby who used his own blood to save us.