Christmas Hope

Can you believe it? It seems like yesterday that we were in the advent season. For those that may not know what Advent is, Advent is the 4 Sundays after Thanksgiving that lead up to Christmas day. This year there are actually 5 Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. So, our Advent season will lead us to Christmas Eve. Our choir will be performing our Christmas music that Christmas Eve morning that they have diligently been practicing.

Advent is defined as the arrival of a notable thing, event, or person. For us as Christians, we celebrate all three. The THING we celebrate is the joyous adventure we are on that leads to something exciting. The EVENT we celebrate is Christmas Day, the birthday of a special person. And the PERSON we celebrate is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It is a special time of year where our hearts are usually a little more joyous, hopefully. If we don’t allow the hustle and bustle of the world’s hectic race to find the perfect gift, and if we step back and look at the real reason we celebrate, our hearts are happier. We smile more. Hopefully we get a little bit closer to those we love, not always, but we can hope for that.

And that is our subject for today’s message. The Hope of Christmas. PRAYER

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Christmas is a time of celebration. Even those who don’tt believe in the birth of Jesus still take the time to enjoy themselves at Christmas. They might not celebrate Christmas for the same reason that Christians do, but the world celebrates.

Even Jewish families celebrate Christmas. One man who was born into a Jewish family tells his story. He said, “Even though they were Jewish, they always celebrated Christmas.” He says, “We had a Christmas Tree, we had Christmas Decorations, we sent and received Christmas Cards, we ate Christmas Dinner and we got Christmas Gifts.

But my parents never mentioned the real reason for Christmas. Growing up, as far as I was concerned, Jesus was no more than a picture of a baby on a Christmas Card. Christmas was a celebration of Santa Claus, not the birth of Christ. I was a Jew, I was waiting for the Messiah to come, no one thought to tell me He had already come. No one told me that the Savior of the World had been born and that Christmas was a celebration of His birth, His birthday. Although Christmas was full of celebration it was empty of any association with Christ Jesus.”

Sadly, that is a fact for so many in the world today, they experience a Christmas without Christ. They may have a very happy Christmas by the worlds standards but don’t understand the real reason for the season. And so, today, I not only want to talk about the Hope of Christmas, I want to share some other aspects of Christmas that I feel are extremely important if we really want to take in every minute of this Advent season.

The first thing I want to mention is The Reality of Christmas. Maybe it would be a good thing for all of us to come back to reality. Speaking of coming back to reality;

The story is told of three men who began talking one day about their wives. The first man said, "When we got married, I told my wife in no uncertain terms that from now on she would have to do all the cooking. Well, the first day after I told her, I saw nothing. The second day I saw nothing. But on the third day when I came home from work, the table was set, a wonderful dinner was prepared...and there was even dessert."

The second man spoke up, "I sat my wife down and told her that from now on she would have to do all the shopping, and also do all the cleaning. The first day I saw nothing. The second day I saw nothing. But on the third day when I came home, the whole house was spotless, and in the pantry the shelves were filled with groceries."

The third man sat up straight, pushed out his chest and said: "I gave my wife a stern look and told her that from now on she would have to do all the cooking, shopping, and housecleaning. Well, the first day I saw nothing. The second day I still saw nothing. But on the third day I could see a little bit out of my left eye."

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More than anyone, we, as Christians need to know that the reality of Christmas is that Christ has come, the Messiah has been born. Jesus stepped out of eternity and into the form of a human baby. Emmanuel, God with us. God has come.