This is my message given during The 4 Persons Christmas special.
Most people look upon Christmas as a time of joy and celebration but not enough people truly understand why. In the midst of cooking, decorating and wrapping, it is easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle even to the point of losing our focus and our peace. We should not allow that to happen.
Jesus was born at the darkest and coldest part of the night, at the darkest and coldest part of the year, in the darkest and coldest part of human history.
The prophet Isaiah tells us that the people in darkness have seen a great light, a light shown to those of us living in the land of gloom.
God’s plan in our life is not that the darkness and gloom be removed but that it be overcome by light. When we put up our Christmas lights, it is- in a way- a protest against the dark. When we light the fire in the fireplace, it doesn’t eradicate the cold, it merely states that the cold will not conquer us or our joy.
Christmas is the answer to the greatest mystery that confronts people of faith.
You don’t appreciate the warmth of the fireplace in the summer. You cannot be captivated by the shimmering Christmas lights until nightfall. You can only appreciate joy if you have known sorrow, you can only reach the morning by passing through the night.
Every new sunrise is a declaration of victory against the night and every Christmas morning is a herald of God with us. For unto us a child is born, for unto us a Son is given. We are greatly mistaken if we think that the homeless and the lonely and the persecuted are excluded from this hope.
On the contrary, the hope of Christmas is most for them. It is a promise that God is with them and that they know no pain or sorrow that He has not also known. He Himself shivered in the cold in that cave in Bethlehem. He, Himself was abandoned by His friends and maltreated by the world.
The biggest mystery that confronts people of faith is why does God not remove all suffering from the world and the answer is the most bewildering answer of all.
Rather than pull us from the icy waters of sorrow, God dove into them with us. His answer to suffering is to join us in it. He chose to partake in our death that we might partake in His life.
The rich and powerful, the esteemed of the day, those who surely had thought they had the answers were now staring, on bended knee at all their hopes, all their dreams, the very meaning and purpose of their entire existence, in the person of a baby shivering on a bed of straw in a place fit for animals to eat.
There, in that wretched place, cast out from the inns of the world for lack of social standing, was their King. Not just their King, but the King over those who thought they were Kings. He lay there, shaking in the cold while those He came to save ate and drank and made merry in warm places filled with song and entertainment.
How absurd it must have been to see these rich men willing to lay down their treasures at the feet of a baby in the feeding trough of a beast of burden. Even more astounding- and imperceptible to the eye- was that all the gold they could bring into that cave was nothing compared to the gift that that child offered them. It was that gift that we celebrate every December 25th.
The Gold signified the treasure of that gift and the Frankincense signified the Royalty of the giver. The Myrrh would be used to prepare his dead body for burial, the willing sacrifice destined to be made later by Jesus.
For now, we celebrate. For unto us is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior. Christ the Lord.
Christmas is a mystery that cannot be apprehended unless it is done so with the deepest awe, the most overwhelming reverence and the most profound humility because it takes everything we thought was true and upends it.
The images we humans made of God or gods often highlighted their power, although imperfectly. Seldom, however, did we try to contemplate the depth of His love and if we had, we could never have fathomed it anyway.
He who knew no beginning created a beginning for Himself to create a new beginning for us. He who knew no end, came to a bloody and tragic end on earth so we don’t have to face never ending torment in hell.
All of this depth, all of this wonder, all of this mystery, shrouded in a normal looking baby born in poverty and laid in a place wholly unworthy for a human, much less God.
The God who made all things visible, chose to stay invisible and He who all time and space chose to enter this world in a particular time and a particular place. At Midnight on December 25th, 2 BC in a cold cave in the little town of Bethlehem, eternity stepped into time.
All the foretold events heralded in the Old Testament came to pass and no one even noticed.
They entered the Inns of the town and shut out the Ark of The Covenant, the celebrated the Festival of lights while The true light was within walking distance.
These people knew all the stories. They knew of the Old Testament Joseph who was carried of to Egypt but they knew nothing about the greatest Joseph who would carry their God to Egypt. The knew the miracle of Hannukah, 8 days of light but didn’t know they were beholding the first of the 8 days that pointed to. There were assuredly bewildered by the mysterious star in the sky, totally unaware of the greater miracle on the ground below.
They were the mover and shakers. The religious pillars of the day and did not know that the greatest religious miracle ever to happen up to then was in the midst of them.
Who did know?
Lowly shepherds herding sheep and travelers from hundreds of miles away, following a star for 6 months.
God, who is all time and all space, certainly could have appeared to them in Mesopotamia, or even sent an Angel but He didn’t. He made them come to Him.
In the same way, we must all come to Him as He came to us.
He is not coming back in a cave and we do not have to travel to Bethlehem to find Him but Christmas is a reminder of the way He did come and the obligations we hold as believers in that wonderful and sacred mystery.
How sad and tragic it is that our modern society has been so successful in sabotaging this mission and turning Christmas into a season of avarice.
Joseph and Mary did not have a Lexus to travel the 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the did so on their feet. The Magi didn’t traverse the desert for 6 months to get in last night fist fights over x boxes and 80 inch big screens.
Granite counter tops and Oak tables filled with turkeys and hams and grandmas mac and cheese are wonderful. A house smelling like pine and cinnamon with shimmering lights and packages around a breathtaking tree? Wonderful too.
Just make sure your family goes to church before they open one present. Make sure they pray before they ask you to pass the Pumpkin pie.
Family members pass on and houses crumble and those precious holiday memories turn bittersweet.
Yet, Christmas past is really all about eternity future and the Christmas that we celebrate is both in memorial and anticipation.
We should not be sad that our saved loved ones are not here with us at Christmas. We should be sad that we are not with them. If the are in heaven, that’s a Christmas day nothing down here can match.
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