Tis The Day Before Christmas
News With Views, Dec 24, 2017
Love.
Family. Friends. Children. Santa Claus. Giving and
Receiving. Food. Lights and other decorations.
To many people, these
words define Christmas. They are correct but miss the reason for
the season.
To many, Christmas is
about an infant born on a cold winter night and placed in a manger. It is
about Joseph and Mary and Jesus. It’s about shepherds in a field who are
frightened when they are visited by angels. It is about three kings who
traveled so far to give gifts to the newborn King (though Jesus was almost two
years old when they arrived).
700 years before the
birth of Christ, Isaiah (9:6) tells us “For to us a child is born, to us a son
is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be
called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
As our society has
become more secular, it is apparent that Christmas has become more of a people
day than a God day. Love, family, friends, children, Santa Claus, giving,
food… all of these things should be part of our daily lives as Christians
rather than something we celebrate for a day annually. Instead, our
government removes Christmas scenes from public property, totally reversing the
meaning of our founders who limited government from involving itself in
religion rather than governing how it should be celebrated.
Hallmark Christmas
movies are a good example of the move towards secularism. First, let me
make clear that I love their holiday movies and, time permitting, have been
known to watch them. It is so nice to get away from the sex, violence and
filthy language so much a part of Millennial entertainment! Hallmark
movies, however, portray Christmas as a season of miracles and romance (and
it’s true that wherever there is hope, miracles happen) but there is little
spiritual inference.
There is no doubt that Christmas is a time of miracles, but the
great miracle we celebrate on December 25th has little
to do with saving a romance. It has to do with saving people from
themselves.
A sermon I listened to yesterday asks a crowd of people a simple
question: “Do you believe human beings have dignity?” Everyone
raised their hands. A second question followed: “Are people born
with dignity?” Half of the hands were raised and the other half were
not. The Pastor was pointing out that though people tend to agree with
one another on big issues, the devil is truly in the details.
He pointed out that
atheists and Darwinists (most people do not realize that Charles Darwin was a
Christian at the time of his death) believe they came from a big pool of mud in
which a couple of cells got together by chance and over millions of years
eventually produced a human being. Atheists, he added, do not believe
they are going anywhere after death… so they come from nothing and go
nowhere. He is right that there is not much “dignity” in that
scenario. So much for the idea of being born with it. It is
something we earn as we develop our character.
To put it into language
anyone can understand, Christmas is God in a manger.
That massive power that
created the world and a universe became a human baby. He loved the human
beings He had created in the beginning and saw that they needed help to
understand what He expected of them if they were to share eternal life (heaven)
with Him.
What is a baby born of a
virgin? It is Total Innocence.
Atheists (and often
agnostics) point out how totally impossible it is for a virgin to become
pregnant… yet have no problem accepting the idea that two cells in a huge
puddle of mud once joined together and begin producing life. There have
been a lot of big, long-lived mud puddles since the beginning and it hasn’t
happened again, but it is impossible to explain how some people think.
It has always puzzled me
why people doubt the virgin birth. Many of those people believe in God…
believe He created the world and the universe, but think He lacks the ability
to impregnate a woman via the Holy Spirit. It strikes me as… almost funny
it is so illogical.
So we have innocence and
God, the only absolute eternal Truth, in a manger on Christmas Day. That
is God’s greatest gift to this world and those who populate it. That is
what we celebrate four days after the date of the winter solstice.
Since no one recorded the date of the birth of Jesus Christ, no one
really knows the precise day we should celebrate. Does it really
matter? What we celebrate is the birth of innocent Truth that will
sacrifice His life so we can have eternal life – and that should be celebrated
every day of our lives.
Our atheist and agnostic friends scoff at the
December 25th date, pointing out to Christians that in the
olden days it was the celebration of the winter solstice and they laughingly
tell us we are so dumb we don’t know we are celebrating a heathen holiday.
The truth is, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December
25th which happens to occur within less than a
week of those who did (and may still) celebrate the winter solstice.
Further, Jonathan Cahn, author of the blockbuster book The Harbinger, has put out a video on You Tube that makes an
excellent case for the birth date of our Lord and Savior as being April 1st.
If you are a /Christian, it matters not what day you celebrate His
birth. If you get a bee in your bonnet and want to celebrate His birthday
again in July, go for it!
It all gets back to John 3:16: “For God so loved the world
that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish
but will have eternal life.” That is what the greatest gift ever given
was and it is the reason the celebration of Christ’s birth involves
giving. It is the reason it involves love, family and celebration.
All are symbolic of God’s greatest gift to His creations: We, the people.
Our Christmas carols would have us believe that the night Jesus
was born, life was quiet and peaceful. It was not a “Silent Night” kind
of world. Very much like Washington, D.C. today, it was a tremendous time
of turbulence in Jerusalem. The Romans were not the kindest of rulers and
their political system was corrupt – a bit like America today – and the angel’s
message to shepherds in the field, “good will toward men” does not suggest that
people should show good will to one another. It tells us that God, through
the birth of His Son, is showing good will towards men. It says there
will be peace to men of good will. It does not say we should offer good
will to those who would destroy us or our Christian way of life or to those who
violate our laws.
There is a feeling of love in the air during the Christmas
holidays. People appear to forget that they are beings who not only need
to be loved, but need to love, as well. We seek love as a means of
finding happiness. The spirit of the season gives us hope… and perhaps
that is the thing that gets less significance in defining Christmas than it
deserves.
Christ signifies hope… for love, for a giving spirit, for kindness
and happiness – and, most important, for the possibility of eternal life.
Christ is the only vehicle on which humankind can rely for the hope of eternal
life. (I realize the Jews will argue with me on this point.)
Without hope, it is all but impossible for love to exist, let alone
thrive. To receive love, we must also give it.
The same is true of kindness. To even be able to find love,
kindness, happiness, et al, you must first have hope of being able to find them
and then you must be able to give them. Every worthwhile thing in life is
a two-way street. You give and you get. Without both, the result is
merely an imitation of the real thing (or a selfish grabbing of these things
for yourself without the ability to return them).
And that’s why I believe the key to understanding the meaning of
Christmas is to understand hope – which means learning to understand the
message of Jesus Christ – and to behave in a way that invites it not only into
your life, but into the lives of all the people in your world. With hope,
anything is possible. To have it, we must believe in it.
When you walk through the mall to return the necktie you don’t
like or the scarf that is the wrong color for you, a worthwhile objective is to
make three people – total strangers to you – smile. Smiles and hope go
together like white on rice.
It’s a great way, as Scrooge might say, to “keep Christmas in my
heart every day of the year.”
God bless and Merry
Christmas! (And now please smile so I can meet my objective of three
smiles from strangers every day!)
© 2017 Marilyn Barnewall
– All Rights Reserved
posted by Marilyn @ 1:37 AM
<< Home