What are your expectations for Christmas? What are your memories of gifts and special moments past seasons? What gift have you given? What gifts will you receive?
We hope anew for each Christmas to bring light into the darkness of our disappointments, discouragement of days past, present and future.
What was it like when you were a child? What special gift remains in your memory in great detail, what special moment of Christmas yet warms your heart with love and joy?
Or perhaps your warmest memories are from a special moment of a gift you gave to your own child, hugs of a Pooh Bear or love overflowing through a well-planned shared moment of opening a Christmas gift.
So many of us rely on and turn back to our memories of Christmas. I remember Christmas pageants and little angels elbowing each other, as well as well-rehearsed Christmas carols bringing a chuckle of joy over an unplanned solo or lyric not just quite right.
In the year of our Lord, 2015, Christmas seems so out of reach…
We have ordered even more of our gifts from those online warehouses. We have sent less Christmas cards, made less phone calls, cancelled caroling and planned less dinners with others (at least that’s how it seems here).
I have ordered gifts that may or may not arrive on time to loved ones I may or may not see. I have missed the touch of picking out personal gifts and handling them; wrapping them in a carefully chosen paper and seeing the look on their faces when my gift is opened. Rather, I hope these too many untouched gifts make it to far away places by Christmas.
I have my Charlie Brown Christmas this year and Rudolph…
We have so many lights and a big tree (but it isn’t real & I didn’t cut it down myself as I once did).
Oh, and we do have a Nativity scene on the mantle. (We all get a little distracted by Christmas, don’t we?)
Our church has already had a wonderful Christmas program. We invited guests; about half of them came. Carolers were going to come to our neighborhood this year from the Christian school, but that got rained out. (Less than half of the homes here even have Christmas lights.)
Christmas is named for Jesus Christ
Why, I suppose most would wonder? Why have Christmas? Why does a busy world like ours even need Jesus Christ?
Of course our neighbors, rebellious family and unbelieving friends certainly don’t want to hear about the Cross of Jesus Christ and Easter. (More than enough violence in the world we would rather avoid.) But Christmas, that’s a holiday we can sell. (People like the lights and gifts and all. Makes us all feel good and remember nice stuff, right?)
Just as Christmas has become a time of sending gifts we cannot touch, Christmas has also become a time of Jesus most of us cannot share.
May I gently remind you here that I have shared Christmas messages with friends, family & strangers every year AND that so few of you have responded positively by even registering on my web site?
I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. – 1 Corinthians 9:23
Very few of us SHARE anything about Jesus with others or have any COMMENT on the Christian Social Witness of our brothers and sisters in Christ our Lord.
We live in very impersonal times. Others wear headphones attached to their devices so that they will not have to hear us. The world is engaged in buying gifts for our selfish pleasures more than sacrificing things for the joy of a few others. Christmas is just another buying season, and a big one at that.
Yet when we silence the music, turn off the virtual visual distraction of the games and news and entertainment; when we sit silently for once, peering into the opened gift of our beating heart, we find a void for the Gift of God better understood as the Baby Jesus in a manger, than a fearsome Father God at the Throne of Judgment.
Fear Not!
Fear not! Do you fear a Babe in a manger? Certainly not.
Our GOD is a loving, compassionate and forgiving God, though He IS HOLY.
Mankind feared the Presence of Almighty God, even more than a Father looking over you. Man fears any spirit, which we cannot see and do not understand, let alone the Spirit of the Living God when the LORD has made Himself know in time and place.
Therefore, even angels, who worship and obey Almighty God; angels as messengers sent to the sons of Adam; powerful angels all men fear begin their announcement of the Messiah with: Fear not.
Luke 2:
10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Is the LORD pleased with you this Christmas, in His year 2015?
You were made in the very image of God.
No man or woman can reflect the Perfect loving righteousness of the LORD. By our sin we openly rebel against our Heavenly Father, who has created all things. By the distraction of our misguided hopes and dreams of self-righteous accomplishment, we reject the Spirit of God and forget to number our days.
Even so, in His loving plan of redemption for those who will turn back to the LORD,
God sent His only Son to a Manger, that we might embrace HIM.
When Jesus’ beloved Disciple John once more beheld the Risen Christ in a Revelation of God’s plan, what were His first words of comfort?
Fear not,
I am the first and the last, and the living one.
I died, and behold I am alive forevermore,
and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
Perhaps you fear other men or circumstances. Maybe you fear your own death. You might even have reverence for God our Father and occasionally give Him a small portion of the glory God deserves.
Yet this Christmas, even by your confession, I adjure you to embrace Jesus as your Lord; embrace Christ Jesus just as you would lovingly hold a baby in a manger.
Merry Christmas, beloved.
Roger
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