The Weight of Christmas

Before I get to what this post is really about, I am excited to say that some friends and I recorded some songs together this week. It began as a Christmas project, and blossomed into a hodge-podge, or as we are going to title our little CD, a melting pot of songs with no real theme. It was really just for fun, it had been too long since we had all played together. I had a great time doing, I would say we, but I suppose I can't truly speak for everyone. We are going to compile them and put them online in the next couple of weeks, hopefully people will download them and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Now here is your regularly scheduled program. It's my favorite time of the year yet again! I love Christmas time for many of the same reasons most people do: time with family, snow, picking out the perfect gift for people, and of course getting the some wonderful gifts yourself. I have yet to delight myself in family time, that begins tomorrow night! No snow yet which is depressing, my shopping is complete, and I trust my friends and loved ones got the perfect gift for me.

Now obviously I left out one very important reason that Christmas is my favorite time of year. This is the season for celebrating God becoming man in the form of Jesus Christ, the "Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing." I think Christmas is just as sweet and joyous for me as Easter, as it should be. Both are imminently important and they need to be given their proper due.

I had the opportunity to preach a couple of weeks ago on Colossians 1:15-23, perhaps the loftiest passage in all the New Testament. Familiar to most, Paul exalts Jesus as the preeminent being in all creation, Lord of all things, and He makes peace by the blood of His cross. The passage is not about the incarnation of Jesus, but it made me take a deeper and different look at the glorious event of Jesus' becoming Emanuel. It dawned on me, not for the first time, but perhaps for the first time with real weight, that this creator, sustainer, preeminent, peacemaker is the same as the man who came to earth to a poor Jewish family in a lowly stable.

Again that is no new revelation at all, but how often do we stop and think about that at Christmas. Too often I find myself just reading a familiar story and singing great old songs (which I love of course) that we only get to sing for a month, and the weight of the incarnation gets lost. It's easy enough for this to get lost in the culture that ignores Jesus altogether and focuses it's attention on the materialistic realm of gift-giving/getting. How dare we lose it even in the midst of our celebrations with our church families and in our family traditions on Christmas Eve/Christmas day!

Of course we need to read the story given to us, and of course we need to sing the great hymns and carols passed down to us through history, but is that where we stop? Shouldn't we be thinking more deeply on the wonderful mystery of that story? Aren't those hymns supposed to foster in us a deeper affection and understanding of the event, not just make us feel good because they're familiar to us? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes, but we must devote the time and energy to mine the treasures that are stashed away in the doctrine of the incarnation.

I am as guilty as any for not being more careful to truly revel in the coming of Jesus, and then as an extension, to the day when he will come again to make all things right. The truth that God became man should cause us to be baffled, amazed, humbled, and thankful. The truth that Jesus will come again should cause us to be fearful, amazed, humbled, and watchful. While these two events are different on many levels, the former signals the latter, and in between these two points we have the event that makes both of these events mean something: the death burial and resurrection of Jesus.

The celebration of Christmas should not be all about the manger, we must come to the cross. The incredible thing about the incarnation is that God became man, and that is taken even further when you add in the fact that the God-man came to die for sinners. We can read the story of Jesus' birth, and like His mother Mary, ponder all these things in our hearts, knowing that through Him we are cleansed of all sin. We can sing and rejoice this Christmas season because we are redeemed, forgiven of all our transgressions, because God came to dwell amongst us and die for us.

We can sing with confidence, "O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant!" We can, "Sing praises to our heavenly Lord, who hath made heaven and earth of naught, and with His blood, mankind hath bought!" We can ask with faith, "By thine own eternal Spirit, rule in all our hearts alone; by thine all sufficient merit raise us to Thy glorious throne."

Enjoy the Christmas season, I sure plan to! Delight yourself in family and friends, presents and eventually the white snow. But don't let this wonderful season pass you by without taking a good hard look at the baby we read and sing about, and consider what He has done for us, for you.