What’s so Merry About Christmas?

What is Christmas for you? Is it stressful shopping trips to the mall, complete with elevated crime, bumper to bumper traffic, parking nightmares, and impatient, pushy crowds? Perhaps it is pulling down boxes of decorations that you dread putting back away in a few weeks. There’s always the overblown spending issue, racking your brain about what to get your distant family that you really don’t want to see right now.

Christmas could mean you are expected to add a ton of extra things to your already overloaded plate. Speaking of plates, it gets to be quite the job to resist the ever appearing plate of sweets. For many, it is a reminder of how much you miss a loved one or wish you were not still single, barren or spending another holiday in a painful marriage pretending “it’s all good” again this year. You look around at all the glitter and happy facades and you’re reminded of a void that just gets illuminated in your heart over the holidays.

Maybe you are thinking about visiting that church again this year, perhaps it’s been a full year since you’ve been and you feel a bit guilty, perhaps you will feel good about going this holiday season; maybe your attendance will please God.

She was about the age of my oldest son. She lived a very long time ago but inside, people were people just as they are today.  She, Mary, was a good Jewish girl walking down the healthy and pure path when her simple life’s direction was interrupted by an angel.

Luke 1:26-38 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

(Greetings! Right, like anyone would be prepared for such an encounter)

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

(Can you imagine what went through her head?)

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”

(I hope and pray I would have been that willing to change my life’s course for the sake of the world, but I suspect there was no other person who would have accepted that treasure that was hidden in the guise of shame, immoral and sinful in the eyes of the world! Mary submitted her will, her desires and plans. She modeled for her son what laying down your life looks like.)

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her. (NIV)

Talk about unwanted pregnancy. It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like. Envision yourself in her shoes. You are a really good, dare I say ‘holy’, teenage young woman. You are clearly dedicated wholeheartedly to God, obedient to your parents, you are pledged to be married (which in that culture was a binding contract) to a man, a good man, who had been chosen for you.

Seemingly out of nowhere an angel appears; it was a male angle which might have made it more alarming for the young pure girl. Was he luminous? The account says she was frightened, of course she was. He tells her she will have a son. Can you imagine? She knew she was a virgin, she knew there was no way she could have a child and yet, in her continued reverence and respect she replied, “May it be as you have said“. (Luke 1:38)

She must have known, she must have felt something, and yet how was society going to react? Don’t kid yourself into thinking this didn’t really happen or that people were more accepting of things like this in that day in age. It was a scandal no doubt!

Matthew 1:20-23 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”Isaiah 7:14–which means, “God with us.”

Who among her would truly believe she was a pregnant virgin?

I hear people deny the virgin birth; I feel for those hearts that are so bound by the need for scientific evidence that they miss the joy that comes only by faith.  For if you deny the beginning, that God put His son into the womb of a virgin, than you have no reason to believe that very baby eventually walked on water, healed the blind, raised the dead or forgave your sins! (Hence there is really no need to participate in all the chaos of Christmas anyway.)

Oh the pain of not being forgiven, I know what it is like to carry the weight of my own sin, the shame, the fear, the regret. I will never forget the moment I first believed. It was as if every bit of pain, regret, fear, anger, resentment, disappointment and sorrow fell off my soul. What happened to me was so real and life-altering, nothing but faith could back it up. If something so far-out happened to me, how could I deny something so far-out happening to Mary?

Friend, if Christmas has nothing to with Christ and it weighs you down, why do you celebrate it? Give yourself some slack and admit, “I don’t believe in the virgin birth, I don’t believe God sent His only son to die for my sin. I don’t believe in the resurrection from the dead.” Why celebrate a holiday that means nothing to you but stress. Opt out, for crying out loud!

However, if you do believe in the virgin birth, if that Baby that was delivered in a stable, of all places, if the star that shone brightly that night over 2000 years ago was so that you could be set free from sin, then focus on that. Focus on that young girl, her little baby, her faith that brought about forgiveness for all. There is nothing stressful about that and if understanding that is all your kids get this year, well that will last them a lifetime and doesn’t require assembly or batteries.

If you don’t believe; own that, and make it yours. Don’t go around taking parts of it. You either believe Jesus is the son of God, sent to die for your sin, or not. Don’t walk the fence of both worlds that’s really shallow, unfulfilling and displeasing to God.

Please note however: if you change your mind and decide you do want to believe, you do want to be set free, forgiven and embrace the peace and love that is yours for the asking-go for it! God loves you as much as He ever has; He’s just waiting for you to get over yourself so He can love on you, the way He loves on me. He wants to fill your cup, the way he fills mine. He wants to set you free the way He set me free. You can’t earn it anymore than you can earn any gift, it’s a gift. I’d say it was free but it was bought with a price, nevertheless it was bought for you!

It’s a present that the God of the Universe gave you; it’s sitting under the Christmas tree (or Menorah) of your life. Have you opened it? Give yourself a gift this year that will last forever.

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, which ever applies to you. May your heart be filled with the love and peace that I have from my Lord and Savior Jesus. Happy Birthday Sweet Jesus, I love You and I am so blessed to be able to celebrate Your birth this year again.

Don’t MISS THIS

(Seriously don’t miss it)

(click here) If Mary & Joseph were on Facebook!

For a great movie that explains it all so authentically watch The Nativity

http://The Nativity