What Is Your Christmas Wish?
Luke 2:9-17 "And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this [shall be] a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen [it], they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child."
Christmas is always a very exciting time of the year. Even though the weather is hot and much of the traditional symbolism of Christmas in Australia relates to colder climes, there is still a real sense of Christmas in the air. Even the songs played in shopping centers such as White Chrismas, Sleigh Bells Ring, Chestnut Roasting, and Rudolph, give those born in the Northern Hemisphere that certain feeling. Just yesterday I stood for a moment and watched some little ones waiting to sit on Santa’s knee and it was clear that the so-called magic of Christmas is still there. They could not wait to tell Santa their Christmas wishes - and that one special wish above all others.
If you asked the anxious shoppers rushing too and fro if they could have just one wish this Christmas what would that wish be? I’m sure the answers would reflect the primary concerns they have in their lives just now. Some who have financial problems, real or imagined, and financial "needs" might wish to win the lottery.
I stepped into a news agent to buy a paper yesterday and had to wait an inordinate amount of time while people were purchasing lottery tickets. It seemed as if they had lottery gift certificates. People were obviously hoping to win or to have their husband, wife or friend win and share the winnings with them. I could not help but notice some worried and harried looks upon a lot of faces.
If you could ask all those anxious shoppers hectically hurrying from shop to shop, "If you had just one special Christmas wish, what would that wish be?" Some might wish for a job or a different job or a promotion. Others might wish for a relationship that has or is falling apart to be restored. It is said that those who have recently seperated or divorced have a particularly tough time at Christmas. Statistics say suicide rates always rise during this season.
Some might wish simply to have a son or daughter rescued from drugs or some other awful situation. Others might wish to be home for Christmas. I am sure those serving in harms way might merely wish to make it home to loved ones safe and sound, when their duty has been fulfilled. We can prayerfully join with them in that wish.
If you could wish for just one thing, what would your Christmas wish be?
Would you wish for real peace on earth this Christmas? Our world teeter totters on the very brink of utter and irrevocable disaster. The terror alert is relatively high in America and all around the world. Those of you born in Great Britain would have perhaps heard that just yesterday there was a serious warning of a possible terrorist strike there during this holiday season. Such ominous warnings continue to be issued in a number of places around the world. I am sure the relatives and friends of those innocent Australians brutally butchered in Bali are especially apprehensive during this season.
So we all should be. There is a nation of some eighty million people led by a mad man. He has pledged again and again to utterly destroy the nation of Israel as well as other nations in the West when he achieves the nuclear capacity to do so. When we think of the implications of this threat, the prospect of meaningful peace in our time seems increasingly slight.
Could such a disaster happen? God forbid! But it seems many leaders of nations are coming to understand the threat the world faces. It is clear we are fighting for survival of civilization as we have known it. At no time in recent history has the saying, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," been more apt.
But what a marvelous thing it would be if all the threat of terrorism and violence would suddenly vanish and absolute peace would prevail among the peoples of planet earth. Some would say it would be a wonderful thing if there was a cease fire in their own lives. If they could really have peace in their family and peace in their work place. If a truce could be achieved. If the conflicts and fightings within and without would suddenly be resolved and civility, sobriety and satisfying solutions could be achieved.
The message of the angel asserts that our wish for peace has been fulfilled in the Saviour born on that Chrismas Day. Real peace must begin in the human heart. Since man’s heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, peace cannot come otherwise. (Jer. 17:9)
Isaiah gives an clear insight into the reason man cannot find peace outside Jesus Christ. "But the wicked [are] like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is] no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."
Does this sound familiar? Is it true that man is tossed two and fro like a bits of flotsam on the surface of the sea? I clearly recall standing and watching the waves violently dash against the shore while rock fishing off the coast south of Sydney. The water was violently roiled, throwing up dirt and debris. I could not help but think of Isaiah’s God-given analysis of man’s natural situation.
You may recall reading of a young lad who was caught in such a boisterous churning sea down the coast. He was washed off the rocks and overwhelmed by a large wave. He couldn’t climb out over the slippery rocks. In his struggle to get out of the sea, he was cut up very badly. That’s how many seem without the peace of God in their hearts. Constantly struggle, but never really finding the real peace he seeks.
The futility of man’s search for peace is reflected in this statement by Jerimiah: "They have healed also the hurt [of the daughter] of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when [there is] no peace." (Jer. 6:14) False prophets were telling the people they could have peace even though they had abandoned their walk with God and were worshiping idols.
Such is the way of man in every age. He somehow seems to feel God is obligated to bless his disobedience and idolatry. In our day and in our land it is clear that idolatry is rampant. Some would ask, "How can that be? We are not heathens or pagans?" The simplest definition of an idol is anything that replaces or comes before God in ones life. This breeches God’s first and great commandment. I am afraid prayers for peace today are hindered in much the same way Israel’s prayers were hindered. "Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid [his] face from you, that he will not hear." (Isa. 59:1-2)
Real and lasting peace on earth must begin in each human heart. It is only through the forgiveness of God that real reconciliation can be achieved and Christ the Peacemaker can bring true peace to the heart broken by sin.
Man is individually and collectively at war with God. James 4:4 "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Only those justified by faith can have real lasting peace with God." (Ro. 5:1) Paul tells us, "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition [between us]; (Eph. 2:14) Although such peace is beyond man’s ability to understand or express, it is a real and lasting peace.
But through the Christ of Christmas we can then have peace in the storms of life. Jesus said, " Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27) The storms of trouble and tribulation can only be really stilled by He who said to the roaring sea, "Peace, be still," - and it did. Those whose wish might be for real peace this Christmas Season would do well to turn in true repentance and faith to the Prince of peace today. In doing this, the sort of calm and peace spoken of in the old carol, "Silent Night," can become a reality. By faith and trust in Him, the peace of eternal salvation, security and strength for the journey can become a reality.
If you could have just one Christmas wish, would you wish for real and lasting joy and happiness this Christmas? In our materialistic, self absorbed, what’s in it for me world, the search for the elusive state of happiness and true joy seems never ending. In our world of sin, sorrow and sadness, the pursuit of true happiness and permanent fulfillment is a universal preoccupation. As the American Declaration of Independence states, it seems all the world feels automatically entitled to it.
What is happiness anyway? That elusive element and elixir of life? That essence of all worthwhile existence? Man longs for it, plans for it, pleads for it and pursues it with all his might. But every time he seems to have happiness in his hand , it seems to vanish like an elusive soap bubble from a child’s eager grasp. Like a dog chasing his tail.
Too it often seems as if our blue skies are always cloudy, our rainbow has no pot of gold at its ending, nor does our ship arrive at the port of real, lasting, happiness. Even the momentary thrill and joyous laughter of our Christmas mornings often die in the air as the treasure of tinsel and glitter become the litter of Christmas afternoons.
But our deep desire for lasting joy and true happiness can be fulfilled in Christ. Man’s common experience confirms that temporal joy and happiness will not last. After all, this is what the Saviour said when He spoke of the futility of attempting to lay up materialistic treasure here on earth and then encouraged us to lay up spiritual treasures in heaven instead. The following quote from my article published in the Gold Coast Bulletin this week speaks to the futility of such seeking:
"Many in our world are seeking many things. Some seek riches, and upon accumulating them, find the need to accumulate more an all consuming passion. There are not enough riches in the whole universe to satisfy man’s insatiable desire for more affluence. Those seeking riches always find money cannot buy the simplest joy or real happiness. No matter how much one may accumulate, when he leaves this world he leaves it all behind. Someone has aptly asked, “Have you ever seen a hearse towing a trailer?”
Some seek fame, and upon achieving it, find the essence of its fleeting fragility. Just a surface survey of the recent history of popular politicians, entertainers and entrepreneurs, easily confirms the illusory nature of fickle fame. How many spend their last days amid the ashes of decaying memories of fleeting moments spent in the fading spotlight of public popularity?"
The angels heralded Christ’s coming as a mission to bring joy and fulfillment to man on earth. Our Saviour told us in His own words that this was mission possible. This is His desire for each of us. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and [that] your joy might be full." John 15:11
Those of us who have experienced Him personally know such joy eludes expression in the human tongue. "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see [him] not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:" (I Peter 1:8)
But we Christians should know that happiness can only be life as God intended. Only God and Jesus, the Son of God, can guarantee abundant and fulfilling life. But even Christ does not promise us a rose garden or to bear us to heaven on beds of flowery ease. But He does offer His power to remove the guilt of sin and His presence to share the joys and trials of life and give true happiness.
But what is this happiness anyway? When thinking of a Christian definition of true happiness one can only think in Biblical spiritual concepts and terms. Admittedly, as Paul said, such spiritual gifts can only be spiritually discerned. This discernment is often only confirmed experientially. How can one really define and describe the joy unspeakable and full of glory ? Especially to one who has never experienced it? Or how can one share the peace that passeth all understanding with someone who is yet at war with God?
Or how can we really define what John meant when he said, "If you love Him you will keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous.."
Especially if many times we act as His commandments are onerous and that faithfulness and obedience are somehow great burdens to be borne by the Christian. That we had rather go any place else than faithfully and regularly to the house of God. That we had rather read anything else, but the Word of God. That we had rather talk to anyone else other than to our Father in prayer. That we had rather share any other news than personally share the good news with our friends and acquaintances. That we had rather do anything else with our money than give it generously to advance His Kingdom. Surely we had rather, “Let our lights so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father Who is in heaven."
If you could have one Christmas wish, would you wish to be really loved and to love in return. Would you wish to have the assurance and acceptance that only real true, unlimited, unconditional, unending love can bring? Would you wish to know that you are loved warts and all, and that no matter what mistakes you might make, someone still loves you with all their heart? In today’s pressure cooker world, it seems that real loving relationships are hard to achieve, and often seem so fragile and easily shattered that they are even more difficult to maintain.
Such love can only be found in the true meaning of Christmas. In God giving His only begotten for the sins of the world and the Son giving His life that we might have eternal life. In our being offered through Jesus a loving Father-Son relationship with the Creator of our universe.
Christ’s love for His people was a paying and purchasing love. Although His love flows freely to us, He paid a terrible price to place into effect God’s eternal plan of purchasing eternal sons of God; buying them back from the grip of Satan and the grasp of the wages of sin. The story of the cross is the story of Christ’s sacrificial love for His people.
Such love has nothing to do with the deserving or non-deserving nature of its object. There is not a single soul in the universe deserving of such a pure and costly love. When the names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, the inscription had nothing at all to do with the worthiness of those who are recorded there. Quite the contrary. God loved His eternal sons eternally because it is His nature to love the unlovable. After all, God is love.
Just as God’s love for us, as expressed and demonstrated by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, is unconditional and without strings attached, even so those of us who are His can have such love shed abroad in our heats. A love that cam compel and constrain us to love Him and even love each other, with an God-like love. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:18-20)
The old story about a farmer’s wind bane illustrates the principle involved. The farmer had painted, "God is love," upon it. His neighbor was offended. He assumed the farmer was indicating that God’s love was just as changeable as the wind direction. But the farmer told him, "Quite the contrary. I mean that God is love, no matter which way the wind is blowing!"
If you could have just one Christmas wish, would you wish for a gift that would never fade or perish? Even though we may have been thrilled and pleased by them, sometimes it would be difficult to even remember this year the gifts we received last year. That is how temporary and transient the things of this mortal life really are.
But there is one gift that transcends mortality and extends into eternity. Paul spoke of it in these glowing terms when he said: "Thanks [be] unto God for his unspeakable gift." The gift that truly keeps on giving is eternal life. Paul again says, "The wages of sin is death, BUT THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD." Why not open your heart to Him today and receive Him as your very own personal Saviour this Christmas?
