You Say You Believe In Christmas... (but your life testifies against you!)
We don’t really believe in Christmas anymore.
Sure, we believe in getting together at church, gift-giving, and shopping. We believe in outreach and charity. We definitely believe in eating too much. And we believe we are “doing good” because this one time a year we think to help others.
We believe in many things during this time of year, but Christmas, not so much.
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Christmas is the biggest day of the year. Kids look forward to it, families make plans for it, but we don’t even really know what it is we are celebrating.
And it is tough to try and compete with Santa, sales, and boiled custard!
No wonder all the church marquees are riddled with catchy slogans and sermon titles, trying to hook a few Christmas stragglers into attending their service, meanwhile Frozen 2 is out and that’s a tough one for Jesus to try and compete with, right?!
But the truth of Christmas is actually dark, and wonderful.
It’s dark because Christ’s coming in flesh meant the mass killing of thousands of infants as Herod tried to stop this coming “king.”
It is wonderful because Christ came, not in spite of our sinfulness, but because of it.
When we spread “Christmas cheer,” it should be because the joy of knowing Christ permeates our entire being!
When we give gifts, it should be, simply, a finger pointing to the greatest gift of all time - Christ’s life and death, and resurrection for us.
If we really believed in Christmas and what it truly means, then we would be charitable the rest of the year.
Is your Christmas as artificial as the tree you got so there would be no mess?
Is your Christmas cheer given by the spirits you add to your egg-nog?
Or does your Christmas time flourish as a response to the blessing of another year you’ve been given by the Creator to make much of His glory?
I work at a homeless shelter and this time of year is always busy. But Thanksgiving and Christmas are always the two times a year we have to turn volunteers away, because it’s the only time people think to serve others. I am grateful for the volunteers who help, but if everyone really believed in Christmas, then it would drive us to serve in January and July too. But we are often too busy doing Valentines dates and Fourth of July parties by the river.
How about, this year, we stop and reflect on what Christmas really means:
The world was bad off because sin had infiltrated and corrupted everything. We could no longer see rightly as our hearts were deceitful and beyond cure. We didn’t even realize we couldn’t find God on our own.
But then the Word (who was in the beginning with God and WAS God) became flesh and dwelt among us, and he lived a perfect life (because that’s what we owe to God but are unable to pay it) and having known no sin, He became yours and my sin, and died in our place that we might live in His righteousness. He was raised on the third day to prove that the Father was satisfied with this payment.
Christmas is a remembrance of the gift we were given at the right time; that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but would have everlasting life.
Have you received this gift of Christ?
Is your life a testimony against it?
Or do you live for Christmas (Christ) all year!?