10 Days ’til Christmas

Pan de Pascua

. . . and we’re getting ready to have some Pan de Pascua and hot chocolate, a Christmas tradition here in Ecuador.  Pan de Pascua means Passover bread or Easter bread.  What a great connection!  We need not simply celebrate the coming of the baby Jesus, but the purpose of his coming.  This reminds me of a poem by Georgia poet Byron Herbert Reese that I copied in my Bible when I was first saved :

When I Think of Christmas Time

When I think of Christmas time, it’s not of candlestick or chime,

It’s not of bells nor mistletoe; It’s of a Babe born long ago.

And when about a child I think, it’s not of heir to princely rank

All richly wrapped and rocked with care, But it’s of Christ whose crib was straw.

And when to Christ I turn my mind, I do not think how he was kind;

I think of sore wounds in his side, I think how on the cross he died.

And when I think upon His death, the very thought alarms my breath,

Not that he died the death of men, but that I slew Him with my sin.

And when I think that it was I who raised the cross on Calvary,

My tears like salty rivers run, for Christ my Lord who hanged thereon.

And when my Lord beholds my tears, He speaks to quiet me of my fears:

How is it though hast slain me, say, Who am but born this Christmas day?

Who am but born at morning shine, in thy own heart’s Palestine–

Born to suffer and be tried before the Pilate of the pride–

Born to sweat in agony, in thy soul’s Gethsemane–

Born, between a lout and thief, to hang upon thy unbelief?

Thou unto my tomb shall come, in thy faith’s Jerusalem

And behold it bare, and find, Easter breaking in thy mind.

Therefore let My Birthday be, a time of joyful jubilee.

With the host hosannas sing; I am born anew to be thy King.

On Christmas day, on Christmas day, on Christmas day in the morning.

So in a way, our Pan de Pascua and hot chocolate are a form of Christmas communion.  🙂