WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT
How are you all doing? Myself, this time of the year kind of wears me out! This week I got to thinking about what Christmas has become for most of us, and just thinking about it makes me tired!
Ask any mother and she’ll tell you that at this time of year, her workload triples. First off, she’s baking like crazy – Christmas cookies for the neighbors, the Christmas cookie exchange party, her workplace, and the church social. She’s got to attend all of those parties, plus get the kids to rehearsals for school programs, church programs, and dance recitals – and attend all those events. Then there are the gift-management details -- the shopping for, wrapping up, and mailing of gifts. All the while managing the children, directing the husband, and putting good clothes on the table and clean food in the closet! – or something like that!
Children live in a dreamlike state of anticipation. School or chores really don’t mean much to them around Christmas time. What they are really thinking about is what they want for Christmas. They do have to do some shopping of their own, getting gifts for Mom and Dad, and brothers and sisters. But, truth be told, they are day-dreaming about presents – lots of them, big ones, expensive ones!
Dads? – Dads get to pay for all this foolishness. We go shopping in spite of ourselves. In fact there are all sorts of things we put up with now, that we don’t put up with at any other time of the year: Crowds, Shopping Malls, traffic, Christmas lights, sappy trees inside the house, equally sappy sentimental music – day, noon, night. Some of us go so far as to even watch figure-skating on TV – not because we really want to, but, hey it’s Christmas and that’s what the wife wants to watch.
I wonder what God thinks of all of this commotion? What is Christmas all about -- really? There is a passage in Scripture in which an angel from God talks to Joseph and gives heaven’s perspective on the matter:
“An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’" Matthew 1:20-21
There are some principles we can get out of these verses if we pause to think about it:
1. Christmas is a “God thing.” It was his idea. He planned the whole thing out himself. Looking at our culture one might think that Christmas was a joint marketing ploy perpetrated upon the public by the manufacturing industry and the retailers. One day some perfume people got together with the electric razor people and voila – Christmas! But, no, Christmas actually began in the heart of God.
He looked down and saw that no matter how clearly he tried to spell things out, telling us right from wrong, (what would bring blessing to our lives and what would bring hardship), we still choose to do the wrong things sometimes. I mean from the very beginning, us humans have been tempted to do life all wrong.
Take the Garden of Eden for instance. In the garden, there were thousands upon thousands of fruit trees with good fruit on them that Adam and Eve could have eaten from to their hearts content. But no, that one tree – only one, mind you, that God had said was off limits – they just had to eat from that one!
It isn’t a matter of us lacking information. We all know that eating too many fats and sweets are bad for us, and that eating rabbit food is good for us. But, it is the season – so we follow our appetites and not our reason!
All of this matter of knowing what to do, and not doing it, or knowing what not to do, and doing it anyway – the Bible calls that sin. And hey, I don’t even live up to my own standards for myself, never-the-less God’s standards for my life.
All of this causes a sort of a problem, and not just sort of a problem – a rather really big problem. My sins, my failings, my shortcomings end up keeping me out of the running for the grand prize of the universe – heaven, eternal life, paradise! I just don’t cut the mustard.
As I said before, God looked down and saw this about me, and about you and about every other human being who has ever lived. So …
2. Christmas is about God’s gift. God sent Jesus to save us. He sent Jesus to save us from our sins. He sent Jesus to save us from ourselves. He sent Jesus to save us from Satan. He sent Jesus to save us from Hell. Now let me tell you, that is a gift!
Jesus’ very name means, “The Lord Saves.”
I read several years ago about a woman who hurriedly purchased 50 Christmas cards without looking at the message inside. She quickly signed and addressed all but one, and then dropped them in a mailbox. Just imagine her dismay when later she glanced inside the one un-mailed card and read these words:
This card is just to say
A little gift is on the way.
No doubt there were 49 people wondering what happened to their presents!
(Illustration from Our Daily Bread, December 25th, 2001)
God is not like that. He’s never made a promise that he won’t keep, and he doesn’t make mistakes! God has been at work on our sin problem for as long as we’ve had it. And centuries before Jesus, He promised us a savior, someone who would come and not only tell us what God would like, he would show us what God was like, and then, even go one step further – he would pay the penalty for our sins, so we can still go to heaven, even though we don’t deserve it.
3. A Christmas gift must be received to be enjoyed. You can never truly enjoy Christmas until you can look up into the Father’s face and tell him you have received his Christmas gift.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
“To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. “ John 1:12
God’s gift – Jesus Christ, must be believed in and received personally. You see Christmas is complete only when it reaches into our hearts.
You know, for years I knew about Christ, but I didn’t know Christ personally. For years I knew that Jesus died for sins, but I didn’t have the assurance that he had died for my sins. For years, I knew that Jesus came to save the world, but I had never asked him to save me from my sins. In fact I didn’t know that I needed to do that.
But, it is one thing to receive a notice that there is a package waiting for you down at the post office, and it is another thing to go and actually pick it up and unwrap it.
God sent his son as a gift to be received. But you must decide to receive him. Jesus will force himself upon no one. He is much to much of a gentleman to do that. If you, by your life or attitudes say, “I don’t want God in my life, I don’t need God in my life,” well, that is your choice.
But, if you would happen to pause a moment and think and say, “You know what? I really have done some stupid things, some wrong things in my life. I really am in need of a savior.” Then all you have to do is ask, and you will receive.
During her brief time in Nome, Alaska, a young fourth-grade teacher had already discovered that she often had to improvise in situations that teachers elsewhere would have found easy. As she discussed the upcoming Christmas program with her students, she was dismayed to read in the program instructions: "For the children playing Santa’s reindeer, there should be brown outfits, and passable reindeer horns could be made of bare branches, trimmed to the proper shapes and painted."
Oh, great! she thought. Where are we going to find tree branches? She looked out the window at the barren snow-covered ground. Not a tree around for miles.
"Well, kids," she said reluctantly, "I guess we need to find another play to do. This one has Santa’s reindeer in it and we can’t make horns out of branches because there aren’t any trees."
The children looked disappointed. Then one little boy spoke up: "Teacher, since we don’t have any trees, couldn’t we just use real reindeer horns? We have a lot of them on the ground right around my house!"
The point is, sometimes in trying to make Christmas special we miss the real thing, and it’s right in front of our noses. Are you looking for the real thing in life? Or are you trying to make do with poor substitutes?
Sometimes we try to fill our happiness quotient by having lots of people around us. We try to get satisfaction from an endless round of activities. We spend hours at the mall trying to buy the perfect gift for each person on our shopping list. Oh, it’s all with good intentions and full of good feelings, but it just doesn’t satisfy -- not for long anyway.
This Christmas, why not look around a little more, and dig a little deeper? You see, beyond all the tinsel is a manger, and beyond the manger is a cross. It’s not shiny. It’s not pretty. But both the manger and the cross were chosen to hold the Son of God.
(Illustration from Campus Journal, December 23rd, 1998)
4. Jesus was born to die for us, so that we might live forever with him. This is the real reason for Christmas, the celebration of Jesus’ birth -- the first step in the fulfillment of God’s plan for saving us.
What’s the bottom line? It can never really be Christmas for you until Christ lives in your heart. Have you received God’s gift? Will you receive Him this morning?
Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20
Will you open the door of your heart this morning and invite Him in? He will change your life, both for this lifetime and for eternity.
Please close your eyes and bow your heads and hearts for prayer.
