MERRY CHRISTMAS
A friend of mine in Houston, Texas tells of the annual Christmas pageant at the church. There were folks in bathrobes and bed sheets, acting out the Christmas story. On the front row of the sanctuary was 4-year-old Nicholas. It was his first Christmas pageant and his eyes were huge with wonder.
When the pageant was over, Nicholas and his family came out the door of the sanctuary to greet the pastor. Nicholas said, "I liked your play, Pastor Charles. It was a really good story"
"Thank you, Nicholas. I am glad you liked it."
Nicholas stood there a minute, turned to his dad and said, "Daddy, did that really happen, or did the preacher just make that up?"
Nicholas asked one of the haunting questions of Christmas, "Is Christmas real?" It seems that even Nicholas knew the discontinuity between the story of Christmas and the story of the world. The discontinuity between what Christmas says and what the world says. This time of year we like to talk about the magic of Christmas, images of mother and child and silent nights and peace on earth. But how different those images are from the images we pick up these days through social media, on television news programs, at work and home. And how can we believe the incredible, when we are so locked into the ordinary?
Brian L. Harbour, in The Minister's Manual: 1994, wrote: "When Pope Julius I authorized December 25 to be celebrated as the birthday of Jesus in A.D. 353, who would have ever thought that it would become what it is today. When Professor Charles Follen lit candles on the first Christmas tree in America in 1832, who would have ever thought that the decorations would become as elaborate as they are today."
"It is a long time since 1832, longer still from 353, longer still from that dark night brightened by a special star in which Jesus the king was born. Yet, as we approach December 25 again, it gives us yet another opportunity to pause, and in the midst of all the excitement and elaborate decorations and expensive commercialization which surround Christmas today, to consider again the event of Christmas and the person whose birth we celebrate."
Thomas G. Long, in Something Is About To Happen, wrote: "Every year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, there is displayed, beneath the great Christmas tree, a beautiful eighteenth century Neapolitan nativity scene. In many ways it is a very familiar scene. The usual characters are all there: shepherds...angels...wise men...Joseph, Mary, the babe -- all are there, each figure an artistic marvel of wood, clay, and paint. There is, however, something surprising about this scene, something unexpected here, easily missed by the causal observer. What is strange here is that the stable, and the shepherds, and the cradle are set, not in the expected small town of Bethlehem, but among the ruins of mighty Roman columns. The fragile manger is surrounded by broken and decaying columns. The artists knew the meaning of this event: The gospel, the birth of God's new age, was also the death of the old world.
"Herods know in their souls...God's presence in the world means finally the end of their own power. They seek not to preserve the birth of God's new age, but to crush it. For Herod, the gospel is news too bad to be endured, for Mary, Joseph, and all the other characters it is news too good to miss."
Regardless of all the elaborate decorations and expensive commercialization which surround Christmas today, the good news is too good to miss. Take time to read the Christmas story with family and friends. Be intentional in sharing with one another how God's gift to you at Christmas has changed your life. The news is too good not to share.
May the joy of Jesus be yours today and every day throughout this Advent and Christmas season!
