It’s Christmastime in Denmark, and from the
moment I get off the plane I notice the red hearts. Large and small
ones hang in shop windows and on evergreen trees. Driving into
Copenhagen, I see so many more. And when I stroll the Stroget, the
famous pedestrian street, I walk under evergreen swags bright with
hearts. More hearts grace trees in Tivoli Gardens, the city’s
inimitable pleasure park.
I don’t have to ask, “What do the hearts mean?” It’s obvious.
They
symbolize Christmas itself, the immense and unimaginable warm and
gracious heart of God the Father sharing his Son, whose own incredibly
kind and loving heart acquiesced to the humility of birth on Earth.
“God is love” (1 John 4:16) is the first memory verse I learned as a toddler. Other verses come tumbling out: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19); “This is my son, the Beloved ...” (Matthew 3:17).
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