The Season, The Reason, The Gift
By
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
OPENING: - This is truly a wonderful time of the year. One of my favorite Christmas songs is “At Christmas Time” by Luther Vandross, I love this song because it is true in so many ways, some of the words are “Ooh, every year at Christmas time I hear the people laughin' Smilin', bein' happy again. Ooh, at Christmas time. Merry Christmas to the world I wish happiness and love for every boy and every girl 'Cause the holiday Makes me feel this way. What a joy it is to find Happy people joined together for the love of Christmas time Ooh, and they feel that way Every Christmas day.
It’s the time of year that we are surrounded by beauty, bright lights, colorful ornaments, decorated Christmas trees, presents, gentle snowflakes, and warm fireplaces. People seem to be full of good cheer and well wishes. We listen to our favorite Christmas songs and reminisce of loved ones that are no longer here. Kids are making angels in the snow Magic tricks by Uncle Joe You can feel the loving in the air Family coming in from everywhere, like India Arie said this is my favorite time of year.
However, to truly appreciate Christmas we must go beyond the joy of presents and the excitement of the different festivities, farther than the decorated trees, cards, wreaths, and Christmas feast. We must surpass the dreamy snow-covered scenes of a white Christmas where everything is sunny and bright and truly understand the reason for the season. Now let me say the reason for the season is beyond the cliché Jesus is the reason for the season. So, let’s look at the Season, the Reason, and the Gift.
PRAYER: -
SCRIPTURE: - Romans 3:23, 5:12, Genesis 3:6, Psalms 51:5, 58:3, Job 14:4 Luke 2, Matthew 2.
Now this is not going to be the traditional Christmas message with wise men following a star and Jesus lying in a manger. My desire is to look at the origins of the season, the real reason for the ultimate gift.
THE SEASON: - I started by saying that this is truly a wonderful time of year – Christmas time. Now before I go on let me establish the fact that I understand the holiday celebrated as Christmas is truly nothing more than a whitewashing of Paganism. For those that believed it was the celebration of the birth of Jesus I am sorry to burst your bubble but it’s not and, in all actuality, has nothing to do with Jesus, His birth, or anything Biblical at all. Although we celebrate the birth of Jesus at this time of year it is not the time of His birth. It is pretty much confirmed among Bible scholars that the actual birth of Jesus occurred in September not December.
Now some may say why is that important because we have been doing it like this all my life and as long as we are celebrating Jesus then what is the problem. Well, the problem is stated in Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” Acts 17:30 says, “And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commendeth all men everywhere to repent”. So no one has the privilege to live in ignorance anymore.
We celebrate Christmas on December 25th, and it is considered both a sacred religious holiday and a worldwide cultural and commercial phenomenon. For over two millennia, people around the world have been observing it with all kinds of traditions and practices, like exchanging gifts, having huge feast and celebrations, going to church, and spending time with family.
Let’s get a little history of its origins. Many years ago, in Germany people honored the pagan god Oden. Germans were terrified of Oden believing that he made nocturnal flights in the winter through the skies to observe the people in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and he would decide who would prosper and who would perish. This is partly where we get the idea of Santa Claus and his reindeer sleigh from. In Rome Saturnalia a holiday honoring Saturn the sun god, the god of agriculture was celebrated. Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful, and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down with a anything goes lifestyle during the celebration. Also, in Rome people celebrated Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun on December 25th. Mithra is an ancient Iranian deity a cult that rivaled early Christianity. Also, many other Pagan cultures celebrate the winter solstice and the worship of pagan deities like Horus and Ra in Egypt, Ball in Syria, Sol Invictus and Helios in Greece on December 25th.
Understand that in the early years of Christianity, nearly the first 400 years, the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the 4th century, around 325 - 350 A.D. Constatine made Christianity the official religion of Rome then there is the Nicaean council which took place giving us the Apostle’s Creed, and then Pope Julius I chose December 25th as the birthday of Jesus Christ to absorb the pagan celebration of Saturnalia which is the worship of the sun god or the rising sun to the worship of the risen Son of God. He believed by holding Christmas at the same time as the winter solstice festival that church leaders would increase the chances that Christmas would be embraced, but they gave up ability to dictate how it was celebrated.
EXPLANATION: - The Winter Solstice is when the sun reaches its lowest point in the sky on December 21st, this is the official start of winter as well, and it actually appears to stop moving for three days, then rising again on December 25th, hence the celebration of the rising sun.
By the Middle Ages the Christmas custom had pretty much replaced the pagan rituals for the most part. In 1819 Washington Irving wrote “The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent” a series of Christmas stories centered around Christmas in an English manor. Also, around this time Charles Dickens wrote the classic “A Christmas Carol” the story’s message, the importance of charity and good will towards all struck a powerful chord in the United States and England and showed society the benefits of celebrating the holiday. Christmas provided families with a day they could lavish gifts on their children without appearing to spoil them. As Americans embraced Christmas as the perfect family holiday people looked toward immigrants and the Catholic church to see how they should celebrate it and over the next 100 years building many of the Christmas traditions we are familiar with today and in 1870 Christmas became an official national holiday.
The word Christmas comes from Catholicism, it started when every saint had their own saint’s day on which a mass or communion service was said in memory of that saint. When the mass was held for the memory of Christ it was done on December 25th and it was called the Christ Mass, which is known now as Christmas.
Now I am sure there are many Christians that will say “Well that maybe true there may be pagan origins to Christmas but I am celebrating Christ therefore it doesn’t matter about the origins anymore”. My response to that is the serpent said in Genesis 3:5 “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil”. We need to hold true to the things of God and stop trying to whitewash and mix the world with God. No matter how much your stir it water and oil will not mix because they are totally different in their molecular structure and their molecular structure repels each other so cannot mix. You cannot mix pagan origins with Christian traditions and truly believe you are honoring God. We must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
So do we stop everything, do we stop giving gifts, do we not get with family and have awesome dinners, the answer is NO! It is my responsibility to warn you. If you were driving down the road and a little down the road the bridge was out and if you kept driving you would drive off the edge plummeting hundreds of feet to your certain death and I knew the bridge was out and didn’t warn you about it and you continued and drove to your death your blood would be on my hands, but if I warn you and you say I have always drove this way it will be o.k. and you continue to drive and drive to your death your blood is not on my hands. I must warn you of what lies ahead.
Understand we must enjoy family because family is precious, all you have to do is look at your family and see who isn’t here to enjoy the holidays with you this year that was here last year. Look and see family that may not be here next year and enjoy them, love them, celebrate them. Eat well, give expressions of love, sing and be merry, smile, laugh and be happy.
However, we must know the truth for the truth shall make you free. We celebrate Jesus Christ for who He is, for what He has done, we Worship Him because He deserves the Glory, the Honor, the Praise, and we do this every day not just on a certain day based on the origins of paganism for that can never truly honor God.
That is a brief origin of the celebration known as Christmas – the Season.
The Reason: - As I stated earlier, we often will get stuck on the cliché “Jesus is the reason for the season” or we say things like keep Christ in Christmas and from what we just learned about the season and the origin of the word Christmas we can honestly say that is not true. That is the whitewashing that we have been taught and hold as tradition. Jesus as we shall see is the gift that was given but the reason for the gift is Sin.
Sin is the curse that damns every soul to hell. It is because of sin that there is pain, wars, anxiety, discord, fear, unrest, worry, sickness, famine, earthquakes, and most of all death. Sin turns beauty into ugliness, sin turns the soft and gentle heart to hatred and stone. Sin is the humanly, medically, psychologically, and legalistically incurable cancer that destroys the souls. Jeremiah 13:23 says, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots”?” – such is sin. We cannot change the effects of sin. Hell’s fire is not able to erase our conscience of the effects of sin.
Sin alienates us from God. God is Holy, He is only Holy, altogether Holy, He is all Holy that’s why the angels around the throne cry day and night Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God almighty which was, and is, and is to come Revelation 4:8.
WATCH THIS: - Our sin separates from Him Romans 5:12 says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”. Everyone has sinned and are sinners from the womb. Psalms 51:5 says, “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me”. Psalms 58:3 says, “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies”. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. Isaiah 64:6 says, “But we are all as unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away”. Sin causes us to be only sin, altogether sin, all sin. The original sin of Adam (mankind) clings to each and every one of us like a dog to a bone, putting us in bondage, destroying us Colossians 2:13-14 and ultimately bringing the wrath of God Colossians 3:5-6.
So, we see sin is the reason, it alienates us from God, puts us in bondage, destroys us and brings the wrath of God, but Love will cause the wrath to be replaced with the gift. So Jesus is not the reason for the season as traditionally believed but He is the gift of all gifts, He is the focus.
Hallelujah 1 John 4:7 says, “God is Love”. Because God is love and 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”. He sent His son John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. Jesus is the gift.
The GIFT: - Isaiah 9:6 says, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace”. This was a promise to deliver the Messiah, the deliverer, the one that takes away the sins of the world, the one that would give his life for you and me.
For unto us a child is born – Everyday earth is populated by children entering into the world and each are loved and adored by earthly parents, but here Jesus is not an ordinary child, not a child of man, but a child that is born for us, the only one that will can take away the sins of the world, that will save sinners, that will open blinded eyes, that will cause the lame to walk and the dumb to talk. He is born for us, born not to fulfill his will but to satisfy the cost of our need.
Unto us a son is given – He is fully given, fully handed over, fully delivered to be our propitiation, for He will pay a debt He did not owe for our debts we could not pay.
And the government shall be upon his shoulder – He will carry the yoke of leadership showing mankind how to be reconciled unto God. He leads and delivers us as He overcomes the world, the devil, and the flesh. He bears the responsibility that is impossible for us to carry.
And his name shall be called – Notice there are 5 titles given here, 5 is the number of Grace.
Wonderful – The word wonderful describes God’s mighty and miraculous acts of salvation. The Hebrew word “pala” indicates a phenomenon lying outside the realm of human explanation; that which is separated from the normal course of events and describes something miraculous. Wonderful is often times translated as Marvelous, when I think of Wonderful and Marvelous I think of the song by Walter Hawkins “Marvelous” some of the words are I will sing your praise for you’ve done such a marvelous thing for someone so wretched yet my soul you redeemed. No one else could do it no one could care half as much yet you thought my soul was worth it so you gave your only son that I might live, that I might be set free you exchanged your life for mine what a marvelous thing, what a wonderful thing, what a glorious thing you’ve done.
Counsellor describes His greatness as an advisor, minister, commander, leader. It’s a word pictured as a king giving counsel to his people. Micah 4:9 declares “Now why do you cry loud? Is there no king in your midst? Has your counselor perished”. Jesus is the counsellor of the broken-hearted people of the world.
As Wonderful Counsellor he is our creator and savior and because He is the fulfillment of all that the Bible teaches and He helps us with our problems and leads us to a place of security, satisfaction, peace, comfort, and rest in Him.
The Mighty God: - (Got Questions) The word mighty relates to a king’s leadership role having or showing great power in authority or military leadership, to be heroic, valiant. Jesus is the brave and powerful leader ruling over the armies of God like no other king before him. He is the divine hero and champion described in Deuteronomy 10:17 “For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward”. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus Christ exhibited a different kind of leadership strength than the Jewish people had come to expect. They were looking for a heroic figure like King David who would deliver them from Roman oppression through valiant military conquests and political might. But the kingdom principles Jesus introduced were based on servant leadership Matthew 12:17–21; 20:28 and a kingdom “not of this world” John 6:15; 18:36. Scripture says that, when Jesus came to earth, He voluntarily “gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being” Philippians 2:7. The “Mighty God” manifestation of Isaiah’s prophecy will only be fully seen in Christ’s second coming. Nevertheless, in every aspect of His life and ministry, from His conception Luke 1:35, 49 to His ascension Luke 24:50–51, Jesus operated with divine power and authority.
As Mighty God, Jesus rose from the dead and now sits at God’s right hand in heaven, high above every other authority, power, and leader. The Bible says God granted Jesus authority over all people to give eternal life to those given Him by the Father John 17:2; John 10:28; 1 John 2:25. At the end of the age, Jesus Christ will come again to earth “with power and great glory” Matthew 24:30. When Jesus steps on the world’s stage next time, Isaiah’s vision of a Mighty God and King will come to full fruition. Jesus will hand over the kingdom to His heavenly Father after He has destroyed every enemy of God 1 Corinthians 15:24–25.
As Mighty God, Jesus will judge all the people of the earth Revelation 18:8, 10. Then He will sit on His eternal throne and reign in great power and authority Revelation 11:15–17; 12:10. Every creature in heaven and on earth will bow down and worship Him. Heaven will ring with the shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God” for He was slain, and He alone is worthy “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise” forever and ever Revelation 5:12–13; 19:1.
The Everlasting Father: - Abraham is called the father of the 3 main religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Muslim). However, these are earthly religions and Abraham being the father of them perse is limited to an earthly inheritance, which is part of the reason for the war is Israel right now with Hamas, they are fighting over what they believe is their earthly inheritance, but Jesus being our everlasting father we have an eternal inheritance. Hebrews 9:15 says, “And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgression that were under the first testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance”. Everlasting father declares he is before, above, and beyond time, while describing His character, He cares like only a father can care and will do what only a father will do and the never-ending nature of His care for us. Deuteronomy 32:6 says, “Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy father, and he will shew; thy elders, and they will tell thee”. Jesus fulfills many roles and the everlasting father lays claim to the fact that He redeemed us, delivered us from the bondage of sin, He created us, set us apart as a peculiar people holy nation a royal priesthood. He deserves the title.
The Prince of Peace:- This is a precious and hopeful title “The Prince of Peace”. Jesus hushes all fears, calms all storms, destroys all enemies, removes all obstacles, heals all sickness, delivers from all bondage. As Prince of Peace, He did what Colossians 2:13-15 says, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it”. To be the Prince of Peace and reconcile us back into a proper relationship with God he had to become Theanthropos, the God - Man, then take the punishment of our sin, paying the price of sin, suffering the pain and agony that rightfully is deserved by each and everyone of us. Ephesians 2:14-18 says, “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and have broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father”.
CLOSING: - The Bible says in 1 John 1:5-7 “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”.
1 Timothy 1:15 says, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief”. He came to save a wretch like me.
The best gift ever is that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. We celebrate the gift Jesus Christ not the holiday known as Christmas. We do not celebrate Him just on December 25th but everyday of the year.
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
