“If Only He Had Worn His Halo…”  

Don’t you just love the Christmas cards portraying Jesus and his earthly mom and dad wearing halos? Mary and Joseph are confined to a stable, probably a cave like structure underneath a motel. Had I been Mary, I would have said, “What do you mean, I can’t get into this inn? Don’t you see my halo?... What’s the matter with people anyway?”

 I’ve seen halos on Christmas cards for years and have still not figured out how I can get one. I want one. I need one. But then again, if those halos couldn’t get Jesus’ family into the inn, they probably wouldn’t work for me; and if they don’t get you into places, what good are they?

What is a halo for? Does it set you apart from other, more ordinary people? Is it like a clerical collar which lets people know who the boss is here at the church? One time when I was speaking at a church in England, a pastor, Wes Boxall, revealed that a lady had visited his church and told him that she could see an “aura” about him.( He doesn’t even wear a collar.) I was jealous. Why would someone see this aura around Wes? Can you imagine what Wes’s wife, Sharon, thought? If that had happened to my husband, he could have had a lot of fun with it! Imagine waking up in bed, turning to your wife and saying, “Honey, other women can see my aura, why can’t you?” or the minister’s wife saying, “Were you wearing your halo at church today, Honey?- Then how is the church board going to raise your salary? “

You may be asking how a person earns a halo. The early apostles must have known. They knew everything about God and Jesus. When you see their pictures in church windows, they all have halos. Do you get a halo by graduating from seminary or by being a martyr? Does the preacher know how to get one? If he does, then why isn’t he wearing one?

 I’ll bet the President of the United States knows. As a matter of fact, I recently saw a painting in someone’s office of President Obama literally wearing a halo. That’s going too far—even if you are a democrat. But what are the requirements for a halo? How many credits in heaven’s university do you have to have before one starts to appear?

Does it signify perfect attendance at Sunday school? Maybe it’s like those Sunday school attendance pins we used to get in the Baptist church. I remember one of my classmates, Ronnie Rogers, had a string of bars on his pin so long he could have tripped over it. But when I saw him recently at a class reunion, the attendance pin and its plethora of bars hadn’t yet converted into a halo.

I doubt that Jesus’ family wore halos, and I am sure that Jesus didn’t, either. It would have foiled the Father’s plan to disguise His Son as an ordinary person to save the folks who knew they didn’t deserve a halo. What a clever disguise for God: an ordinary person! That way, He could sneak up on people and do wonderful things to them, and they wouldn’t even know what hit them—until later. Can you imagine the stir if people had only known that it had been God who was standing next to them all along? Maybe they wouldn’t have executed Him if they had known…  

It was the disguise, after all, that killed Him. If only He had worn His halo! Instead, He trusted His Father so much that He wouldn’t tell anyone much less wear a halo. Had He worn His halo, we would have all died in our sin. But trust me, Honey, He’s got one now; and if you believe what I’m telling you, you have a halo, too.

So before you put your halo on today to alert the public as to how holy and important you are, remember that you didn’t earn it. In fact, it is better that you do not wear it here. Instead, go out and disguise yourself as an ordinary person like Jesus did and do wonderful things in His name. That way people won’t look at you, they’ll look at Him. Maybe He’ll give them a halo just like yours!

Melinda Fish <>{