MERRY CHRISTMAS!
To be honest I was a little surprised as I looked through a popular photo service we use to provide pictures for the work we do on social media. We pay a small fee to use the service and they have some awesome pictures. I was surprised that among all the beautiful hundreds of photos for Christmas, there was no Christ in any of them. You would think it would be difficult to talk about Christmas without Jesus but our world has mastered it.
Sadly we are becoming accustomed to such things. Our world is ok with sanitizing the Christ from Christmas. The message of Christmas may be challenged in our world but the result of Christmas cannot! “A child is born…a son is given”. God came to dwell among mankind. God came to die for all mankind even those who will not celebrate the reason for Christmas.
Christmas gave us a Savior! To a people who rejected God and became the property of a very real hell, God sent His only Son. He came on a rescue mission, but he also came on a redemptive mission. No other story in History has the hero giving His life for the villains. Guilt, shame, addictive behaviors, unfaithful, selfish, ugly on the inside to our very core and God sent His perfect, sinless, Son to pay for our sins. Four words from the Christmas carol Hark the Herald Angels Sing…“God and sinner reconciled”.
Christmas gave us eternal Family! The body of Christ is made up of our global church family our immediate family, some on earth some in heaven we are eternally family because of our personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and that happened because of Christmas. One day I will go home for Christmas and will await those I leave behind. It is difficult to imagine what my first Christmas in my eternal “real” home will be like. We spend much of life asking the question “where do I want to live”. Toward the end of life we ask “where do I want to die”. We want to be surrounded by those who love and care for us. our family and friends. Imagine a home where you never die, cry or sigh. Christmas gave us all that too.
Christmas gave us intimacy with God! All other gods are man crafted and demonically inspired and not a one of them is interested in you personally. Christmas revealed the One True God and His love for us individually. No angel was sent to convey the message, God came in the flesh to dwell among us. The recipient of the message was too important to God to leave the job to a messenger. Picture God looking across the vastness of heaven at created beings that to us are majestic looking, descriptions in the Bible speak of the wonder of these celestial beings. They are referred to 196 times, 103 times in the Old Testament and 93 times in the New Testament. Listen to this description of angels called Seraphs…
“Seraphs stood over him; each one had six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and they used the remaining two to fly” (Isa. 6:2)
Another passage of scripture in book of Revelation describes these creatures : “are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say,“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.”
No matter how amazing these creatures and how awe inspiring they may have been to us, none would do to carry the intimate love message of God. So He wrapped the message in His son and personally delivered it. “Joy to the World, the Lord is come, Let earth receive her KING! Let every heart prepare Him room and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing and heaven and heaven and nature sing.”
The world works hard to speak of the magic of Christmas by putting something other than Christ in the manger. But you cannot have Christmas without Christ. The gifts fade, the music will cease, the romantic stories turn to real life struggles, family dinners can expose family heartaches. Long after the decorations are taken down the manger remains. The gift God gave is still available to heal hearts and souls.
