“Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual festival
commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed most commonly on December 25
as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the
world.” So begins Wikipedia’s
article about the holiday I love best.
I had the privilege of being brought up in a home
that kept Christmas in all its fullness. Christmas in our household was filled
with many delightful traditions: the keeping of
Advent, baking
stollen, decorating
a Christmas tree, and eating
German delicatessen on Christmas Eve. And in the
midst of those traditions, my parents wonderfully connected them all to the
centerpiece of the holiday: the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
The blessing of that rich Christmas heritage is
one of the biggest reasons it’s impossible for me to think of any aspect of
Christmas apart from Jesus. Even Santa Clause, the supposed (and sometimes
chosen) substitute of the Christ-child, is representative of the
real-life Christ-follower who exemplified the compassion and generosity of his Lord. While believers and nonbelievers alike have
contributed to the holiday, it’s unmistakable that its purpose to “billions of
people around the world,” as Wikipedia put it, is to remember Jesus’ birthday.
As a believer myself, I see it as a great loss not to participate in Christmastime
with the same intentionality with which I was raised. Why miss the opportunity
to mark with great joy the coming of Immanuel, God with Us?
So, whether you are a longtime keeper of
Christmas, a skeptical non-participant, or somewhere in the middle, I commend
to you the following ways of passing this Yuletide.
Christmastime
is for commemoration. God gave
His people holidays to help them remember His great works on their behalf. Holidays
like Passover (Exodus 12) reminded them of His protection and deliverance while holidays like
The Feast of Booths (Leviticus 23:33-44) reminded them of His provision. In the same vein as those
ancient holidays, there is no better time of the year than Christmas for
Christians to commemorate God’s greatest work of all: the salvation of sinners
through the incarnate Messiah.
Christmastime
is for celebration. It’s appropriate that Christmas falls at a time
of year when much of the world’s nighttime is at its longest. Darkness is
representative of the condition that the world was in spiritually before the
coming of Christ. It’s fitting that we mark with decorations, songs, food and
mirth the advent of the Light of the World, the Victor over the darkness (John 1:1-14).
Christmastime
is for reflection. Mary taught us from the very beginning that
Christmas is a time for pondering (Luke 2:19). If you haven’t, think about the
reasons Christ needed to come. What if He hadn’t come? What have you done
with the fact of His coming? If you’ve received the Christ-child, how is He at
work within your life today? What have you done to bring His light to those
still in darkness?
Christmastime
is for preparation. God’s people waited long for their Messiah’s
coming, but when He finally arrived, only a few were actually prepared to
receive Him. Simeon, Anna, and the Magi exemplify people who waited with active
expectation for the birth of Christ. As a result, the day of His coming was one
of incredible joy and fulfillment. We too are waiting for an advent, the Second
Coming of Immanuel. We, like the Thessalonians, are waiting for God’s “Son from
heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivered us from the
wrath to come.” (I Thess. 1:10) We might be waiting, but are we prepared, as
those few at His first coming were, for His arrival? Indeed, I cannot think of
any better reason for the celebration of the First Advent, then to prepare our
hearts for the Second.
Photo by Chris Wolff, available in creative commons here
