[HAVE YOURSELF A SELFISH LITTLE CHRISTMAS]
Slide graphics – Christmas Grinch.
Slide Verses –
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:10
The meaning of Christmas, I think you would agree, has changed over the years. Each year it seems more and more commercialized – more and more self-centered. What percentage of the people in the US, do you think, will go through the whole season this year never really even once noticing that Christmas is “Christ”- mas. Christmas today is really about ourselves.
In case you you haven’t heard, this is not the original meaning of Christmas. The first recorded Christ-mas – or Mass celebrating the birth of Christ was in 336 AD. Until the 1800’s, December 25th was a Holy Day only – no Christmas trees, no exchanging presents, no Santa Claus, no feast. It was truly all about Christ. It’s only been in the last 200 years that it has become so self centered. This is not a good thing. A self-centered life is exactly opposite of the life God intends for you. It is not just “a” bad thing – it is “the” bad thing. The root of all evil. Being self-centered, or selfish, is absolutely the very biggest sin – in fact – the only sin. The only one.
Let me explain:
I once read a book called “Transformed Temperaments”, by Tim LaHaye – who later went on to co-author the Left Behind series. In this book he asks you to list every evil nature known to mankind. Write them up on a blackboard. Murder, rape, hate, jealousy, pride, lust,cheating, stealing, envy, gossip, suicide… you name it – put it on the board. Then he goes on to show that all these terrible things really boil down to two emotions – fear or anger.
Murder, hate, cruelty, criticism – all these are various forms of anger. Hate is when you don’t believe life has been fair or good to you in the past. Jealousy, envy, suicide, cheating, stealing – these are all forms of fear. Fear is when you don’t believe life will be fair or good to you in the future. Hate and fear are two sides of the same coin.
Now think about this a moment. If you really believe that there is a God in Heaven who is in control of everything that happens, then your hate and fear are actually an accusation that he has not been fair to you in the past, or a lack of faith that he will be good to you in the future.
That was actually the original sin. The sin of Satan and the Sin of Adam and Eve. They did not believe God had their best interests at heart. They thought that if they went a different way than the way God had planned for them, their lives would be better off. They chose to be self-centered rather than God-centered. That choice was sin – the only sin that ever was, and it’s still happening every moment. We made the choice. We separated ourselves from God.
Christ came to earth to pay the price for that choice. He was born human, and lived a perfect life in order to be an acceptable sacrifice in our place. This is what Christmas is about. God himself coming down to earth – born in a manger in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago. Living a God-centered life and dying in our place as punishment for our self-centered lives.
Christmas is supposed to be about a gift, but about one that was God-centered, not Self-centered.
[AN INDESCRIBABLE GIFT]
Slide Graphics – Bugatti Veyron (car)
see, for example: http://www.motorimania.net/manifestazioni/supercar/index.shtml
Slide Verse –
Thanks be unto God for His indescribable gift
2 Corinthians 9:15
Let me see if I can say this another way. Imagine the perfect gift in the eyes of the world today – the no-holds barred, all the stars aligned, perfect world best gift ever. What kind of a gift would it be.
I saw something that comes pretty close to the perfect gift by most people’s standards the other day. On December 14th, Volkswagen announced that they were finally offering for sale the Bugatti Veyron. They’ve been working on the design for this baby for eight years, and now it’s hit production. You can own your own Veyron for the low-low price of only $1.2 million dollars.
It’s hard to even classify this thing as a car. It will easily punch up to 250 mph. It can sprint from a dead stop to 62 mph in 2.5 seconds. It has an 8.0 liter 1001 horsepower engine with four turbochargers. The editor-in-chief of Car and Driver magazine go to test drive one. He said he was cruising at 180 with the gas pedal not even halfway to the floor. He punched it (already going 180) and it pinned him to the seat. This area where the seats are located in this machine isn’t called the passenger’s compartment – it’s called the survival pod.
The seven-gear manual transmission, all-wheel-drive Veyron is so fast that its designers customized three different suspension modes:
• Standard Mode - for driving below 130 mph
• Handling Mode - for 130-230 mph, where the front diffuser flaps open, the body drops closer to the ground and the tail wing and spoilers have to be deployed hydraulically to keep the car from lifting off the ground. When you hit the brakes in this mode, the car doesn’t engage the brakes in the wheels, it re-orients the spoiler as an air-brake like a drage chute or a jet landing on a runway.
• Top Speed Mode – when you reach230 mph, you activate this mode manually with a separate key. Bugatti is pretty hush-mouthed about what actually happens when you turn that second key.
Bugatti is building one Veyron a week at a new factory in France, every one bought and paid for before it is built. They will shut down the factory line when the 300th Veyron is completed.
Why stop there, though? The sky’s the limit. What other gifts do you want under your tree this year?
• a new car wax that promises to give it the ultimate shine retails for $3,400 for an 8 ounce can.
• a $300,000 gold & silver toilet seat inlaid with precious stones.
• an $18,000 Frisbee
• a $10,000 yoyo
• a $27,000 pair of sunglasses.
I’m not saying nice things are bad. If one of you want’s to go out and buy me a Veyron for Christmas, I’ll keep it and thank you for it. What I’m saying is that the nature of these gifts is that they are focused on you. When the folks at Bugatti advertise the Veyron, they describe it as something that your life will be incomplete if you don’t own. That’s the way marketing works. That’s the way Christmas works in our comercial world. Gifts are all about you – you getting the things that are going to make you happy. Think about this. The next time you see a commercial – for anything – think about how they are describing the product. Clothes aren’t advertised as warm or durable – they’re advertised as something that will make you look cool.
In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul at first is writing about gifts – in this case not spiritual gifts like we talked about recently, but actual gifts – presents. Paul is telling the people of the Church in Corinth that he has been boasting about them to the people in Macedonia – describing the gift the Corinthians are putting together for the poor in Jerusalem, their generosity and eagerness to help. Paul describes their gift as God-centered, not self-centered.
Then he shifts his attention from human gifts to God’s gift of sending Jesus to earth for us. And Paul, the author of much of the New Testament, can’t find words to describe that gift. He simply says, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.” The gift, of course, was Christ. That’s what we are celebrating – the birth of Christ into this world. The end of selfishness. The Gift of a loving God of Justification, of peace with God, of Access to God, of Deliverance from Wrath.
Christmas is about the end of selfishness. A return to God-centered lives. The true spirit of giving at Christmas isn’t about you – it’s about spreading the only gift that matters – the love of Christ.
[MAKE A WISH]
Slide Graphics – pictures of Frank “Bopsy” Salazar. See internet sites:
http://www.snopes.com/glurge/fireman.htm
www.ci.phoenix.az.us/FIRE/nov02.pdf
Let me tell you about a group of people I think have got the picture. A group that understands the true spirit of Christmas gifts. Have any of you heard of the “Make a Wish Foundation”? They are a charity organization who’s goal is to make the wishes of terminally ill children come true. Have you heard the story of how it began?
In Phoenix in 1981, a 26 year old woman was watching her 9 year old son die of leukemia. The boy knew he was dying, and told his mother that his only regret was that he would not grow up to be a fireman. His mother was determined to make that dream come true for her dying son.
So later that same day, his mother went to her local fire department and explained her son’s final wish, and asked if it would be possible for her son to ride around the block on the fire engine. The hardened firefighters were moved by the request, and decided they would do more than just give the boy a ride. They would make the boy, Frank “Bopsy” Salazar, one of their own, adopt him as an honorary fireman. They asked for Bopsy’s measurements and had a genuine set of “turnouts” made for him in his size – yellow slicker, boots, the hat, all with the emblem of their station. They picked Bopsy up at the hospital, helped him dress in his suit, and took him to the station, where he ate with the men, drove the fire truck, and, of course, slid down the pole. There were three fire calls in Phoenix that day, and Bopsy went out on all three – once on the ladder truck, once in the paramedics van, and once in the fire chief’s car. That evening, he was given a certificate and a genuine badge, making him an actual Phoenix fireman.
This experience lifted Bopsy’s spirits so much that he lived three months longer than the doctors thought would be possible. During that time, the firemen and Bopsy’s mother began a charity to spread this gift to other terminally ill children. Bopsy lived long enough to fulfill another dream – to go to Disneyland in California. The men from Bopsy’s fire department in Phoenix called their brother unit in Anaheim, and Bopsy’s plane was met by a fire truck full of Anaheim’s best. They escorted him to the theme park, and two firemen in full uniform stood by his side through the entire day.
One night after he returned to Arizona, all of his vital signs began to drop dramatically and the head nurse began to call the family members to the hospital to be with him in his final hours. The nurse knew about the firemen who had adopted Bopsy, so she called them also, and asked if they could send over a fireman in uniform to see him one last time.
Five minutes later, a ladder truck arrived, lights flashing and siren blaring. The side of the vehicle that usually read “Ladder #1” had recently been painted “Bopsy #1”. The ladder extended up to Bopsy’s third-floor window, and every on-duty fireman from his station came up the ladder into the room, in full uniform. The chief had called ahead to ask the hospital to make an announcement not to be alarmed, it was just the Firemen of Phoenix Station #1 coming to see one of their finest brothers one last time.
Bopsy looked up at the fire chief and said, "Chief, am I really a fireman now?" “You are," the chief said. With those words, Billy smiled and closed his eyes one last time, as the fireman all stood around the bed with their hands to their foreheads in silent salute and with tears running down their cheeks. Later that week these men, the crew from Ladder #1 served as the pallbearers at Bopsy’s funeral, where he was buried with his firefighter gear.
This happened during the spring and supper of 1981, but whatever the season, the men of Station #1 had the true spirit of Christmas Giving in their hearts. If you want to celebrate the birth of Christ, God’s “Indescribable Gift” to the world, then this season is not about the selfish pursuit of gifts for yourself, it’s about giving – giving the gift of the love of Christ to a dying world. Think about how the story of the firemen’s gift to Bopsy feels to you. What kind of gifts are you giving that make you feel like that? Those are the true Christmas gifts.
Imagine someone showed up in a time machine today and told those men from Station 1 that they could have their very own Bugatti Veyron, all they would have to do was go back and make sure no one answered Bopsy’s wish. Do you think they would take it? I don’t think so, either.
I get choked up every time I think about this story. Don’t tell anyone – I’m supposed to be a “manly man.” I think that story has Power, it is Right. I think “Yes – that is how it should be.” We talked about Narnia last week, when the Faun Mr. Tumnus said “Always Winter and Never Christmas.” Narnia was a land where no one ever felt like that. That’s what the spirit of Christmas giving feels like. And, in that sense, in heaven, it will always be Christmas. For the rest of eternity, you’ll be saying “Yes – this is how it should be. This is Right. This is Power.”
[SANTA’S MAGIC BAG OF TOYS]
Slide Graphic – Santa with a bag of toys
I read a poem once (see http://jsmagic.net/xmassantasprayer/page2.html) about Santa’s magic toy bag. Some kids want to ask Santa about those flying reindeer. Others want to ask how he makes it to every house in just one night. In this poem, a boy just had to know about that magic bag, how it could possibly hold enough toys and not run out. The poem really underscores the real spirit of Christmas we are talking about today.
The gist of the poem is that Santa does visit every single girl and every single boy, but:
He told that small boy with the light in his eyes,
"My secret will make you sadder and wise.
"The truth is that my sack is magic inside
It holds millions of toys for my Christmas Eve ride.
But although I do visit each girl and each boy
I don’t always leave them a gaily wrapped toy.
Some homes are hungry, some homes are sad,
Some homes are desperate, some homes are bad.
Some homes are broken, and the children there grieve.
Those homes I visit, but what should I leave?
For these children, Santa doesn’t’ leave a gift, he leaves a prayer. A prayer that they will receive the true spirit of Christmas, and that when he returns the next year, Santa will find a house full of Joy and Wonder.
It’s a very hard task, my smart little brother,
To give toys to some, and to give prayers to others.
Then Santa goes on to say that the reason the sack never runs out is that it is full of Love. That is the magic. You can give love and give love, but the more you give away, the more you have. Every one of us, santa says, has a magic bag just like his in your heart.
And if on this Christmas you want to help me,
Don’t be so concerned with the gifts `neath your tree.
This Christmas, don’t worry so much about unwrapping gifts, and start thinking about unwrapping your heart.
