I Like Christmas

Christmas is always a very exciting time of the year. I like Christmas. I like the songs and carols that fill the air. I like the hustle and bustle of the crowds as they jostle through the busy shopping malls, looking for that special gift for that very special one in their life. I like the excitement and anticipation of it all. The expressions of good will that many seem inclined to share. The smiles and the sincerity of those who say: “Have a good Christmas” I like to reply in kind. I guess the season tends to bring out the child in many of us. Some of us have never completely outgrown our childhood love for the days of Christmas.

But more than anything else, I like the true meaning and message of Christmas. A message so simply and succinctly expressed by the angels who heralded the birth of the God-man who would forever change the course of history. The One who would truly make history - “His story.”

I like Christmas because it reminds us that His birth was announced as: “Good news to all people.” The good news of Immanuel. God with us. Our world is filled with those who feel lonely and unloved. Einstein once said, “It’s strange to be known so universally and yet be so personally lonely.”  The message of Christmas is that God sent His Son to earth to embrace each of us with His love.   Augustine placed it so beautifully when he said, “He loves each one of us, as if there were only one of us.”

I like Christmas because it is much more than tinsel, ribbons, presents and parties or a hectic rushing to and fro; giving and getting temporal gifts that will have no real value in eternity. Christmas is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who came to give us the greatest of all gifts, eternal life and a home in heaven with Him. Christmas reminds us once again of this greatest gift of all: God giving His Son, His Son giving Himself, that we might be able to exclaim once more with the apostle Paul, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!”.

God Became Flesh

John 1:1-14, Isaiah 7:14

Our study of the Biblical account of the birth of our Savior should not be seasonal. Our thankfulness for His unspeakable gift should permeate our life throughout the entire year. We should live our entire life in the light of the glorious truths that normally only momentarily illuminate a few days of the Christian calendar each year. The story of the incarnation of God into the flesh of man is a vital foundation stone of the very gospel of Jesus Christ and should undergird our faith year round.

Two great philosophers who pre-date the birth of Jesus had this to say about the necessity of the incarnation, "God will never be known unless He reveals Himself in human form." "Oh, that someone would arise, man or god, to show us God." (Socrates) You do not have to be an intellectual to recognize the logic of the philosophers' argument. The proof is always in the pudding. The ultimate illustration is in the reality.

When God chose to become man He put paid to the long awaited proposition prophesied by the Old Testament prophets. The concept that Isaiah posited when he said, "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name, Immanuel (God with us)"

When God chose to come in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to flesh out His eternal purpose of redemption for those who would be eternal sons of God, He not only personified an absolute selfless love, but He demonstrated the ultimate in communicating such love to those who were to be the objects of it. Can you imagine the infinite God of a limitless universe, condescending to imprison His infinite being in the finite flesh of man, on a tiny ball of mud, in a far off corner of a very mundane sort of solar system, in a less than spectacular galaxy that man calls the Milky Way?

Why would He do such an unlikely deed? Evidently, in order to say to His rebellious and ungrateful creature, man, "I love you with an infinite love and will make it possible for you to love me with such a love in return! In order to give you the privilege and capacity to do so, I am not only willing to live in your dirty, stinking, sinful and rebellious environment, but to die unjustly at your hands that you might, in turn, mercifully live forever in an environment fit for a Child of the King!"

If Jesus had not been born of the virgin Mary, God incarnate in the flesh, there would be no gospel, salvation, forgiveness or life eternal. We would be yet without Got, without Christ, and eternally lost in a dark and sin cursed earth. Is it any wonder the apostle Paul was moved to exclaim, ''Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift" (II Cor. 9:15) 

Should We Be Men-Pleasers Or God-Pleasers?

Christians are often faced with the alternative of pleasing God or man. It is all too obvious that many times it is impossible to do both. God’s ways are not man’s ways. The paths that lead to a position of popularity with God and man do not often run parallel. It was Jesus Himself who spoke of their divergence. He pointed to a broad way and a narrow way. He made it obvious that the broad way that leads to eternal destruction is man’s way. He also said, “Woe unto you when all men speak well of you.” It was the wise man who gave us the proverb, “There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

How true the statement, “A man who wishes to lead the orchestra must first turn his back upon the crowd.” So it is with spiritual leaders and Christians who wish to please God. The desire to be liked, accepted, popular, and comfortable, compromises and destroys the witness of many today. Perhaps this is the primary reason we see those who once were looked upon as sound and scriptural preachers of the Word falling away from the truth and departing from the faith. The one thing that seems to be common among them is a seeking for popularity with the world and the approval of the powers that be in the world.

Some marketing organizations exist today for the purpose of determining just what churches and pastors can do to please and attract the world around them. Whole movements are focused upon the concept of structuring and implementing ways of worship that titillate the senses of the lost. Methodology and music are adopted in order to appeal to the tastes and attitudes of the unregenerate mind.

The Christian should seek the approval of God above all else. He should determine to be popular with Him, no matter what the cost. But so many today are like those in the day of our Saviour. He described some very religious folks as men pleaser's rather than God pleasers. He said of them, “For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” (John 12:43)

These same difficulties sometimes face New Testament Churches today. The world’s view of a with it church has never coincided with God’s view of a church that glorifies Him. The choice today seems to be much the same as it has been in every age. Should a church seek to be in the mainstream of religious activities and be accepted by the world or strive to be in the center of God’s will?

A person who pleases God is a person God will bless. A church that pleases God is a church that is after God’s own heart. Why? Because the praise of man is at best fickle and fading. It means nothing in God’s economy. Its echoes in time will not even penetrate God’s eternity. But it will be sweet music to the ear when the sound of our Savior saying, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” fills His heavenly universe. The harsh sounds of some worldly church music and the words of praise and accolades spoken by men will have long since faded into trivial insignificance!