The Last Christmas

Christmas is not about the birth of Christ. It is about the coming of Christ—not the actual birthday. No one knows which day He was born, but we know He came to fulfill the promises made long ago, and to make all things right. That is the true meaning of Christmas and the purpose for our celebration.

We remember that at Christmas—but there’s also something we forget.  There is not one coming of Christ, but two--one that has already happened and another ahead of us. Christ promised to return one day and that will be the last and final Christmas.

The last Christmas will not be like the first.  There will be no manger, no wise men, and no shepherds. The visitor coming down from heaven will not be an angel, but Christ Himself.  It not be a silent night, but a glorious morning.  No kings will rage to stop him, but they will fall down in terror at His feet.  It will be the fulfillment of all things. 

What makes Christmas story so special to us is not just the facts, but how the story makes us feel. The reason Christmas is universally celebrated is how we connect with the story emotionally. The Christmas is about the fulfillment of a promise, and the realization that dreams come true. 

This celebration of a promise fulfilled has taken on a life of its own.  Ever since we were tiny babies, we have learned that if we make wishes at Christmas they will come true. Like Israel longed for a Messiah, so children long for toys on Christmas morning. When Christmas morning comes, they get what was promised, as Israel got the Messiah they sought.

 But children’s wishes do not come cheaply. Our parents love us very much.  We have no idea as children how much sacrifice and effort our parent’s put into making our dreams come true, nor do our parents want us to know.  They want us to learn that they love them, that the world is a good and decent place, and that there is always hope that our dreams will actually come true.

Christmas is a symbol of dreams fulfilled. It is such a power symbol that whenever we receive a realized hope we say it “feels like Christmas.”  Weddings feel like Christmas. Graduations feel like Christmas. Job promotions, new babies, all feel like Christmas to us. Christmas is when we learn that things can be happy and new, that we can have new beginnings, and we can celebrate what is good and pure with friends and family.

Christ’s coming was a dream fulfilled.  At Christmas, God showed he had not forsaken us, that Christ came to fulfill our dreams. This is what children learn—that the world is a good place where promises are kept, dreams are fulfilled, and parents can be good and wonderful and wise, and we really can live happily really is ever after. 

At least, this perceive as the meaning of Christmas, Every Christmas brings new toys under the evergreen tee, which renews its bounty with ever new Christmas season. But it is not necessarily the case.  Sometimes, our promises are not fulfilled We do not understand why we don’t get what we want.

Our knowledge of God and His promises are much like the promises of Christmas. We’ve been told that God loves us and that He gives us everything. Then one day things don’t walk out like we think they will.  We come to Jesus, expecting eternal bliss and joy. Instead, we get trouble, hardship, rejection, persecution and misunderstanding. Our temptations are still there, so are out frustrations.   

We get confused about God’s promises. We confuse God’s blessings with the secular image of Christmas.  But God’s favor is not a fairy tale or a Disney movie, where the world is all right all the time, and the magic of Christmas lasts the whole year long. By New Year’s we’ve packed up the Christmas lights and the put away the wrapping paper.  Our toys have already started breaking.  What is new is starting to become old, so very quickly.

I love the Toy Story movies, because that is what they are really about. They aren’t about toys, they are really about what happens to us as get old and die.  Toys we receive on Christmas break, and we have to deal with that.  As we move from Christmas out into the ordinary world, things seem to fall apart for us. 

A couple gets married, but the honeymoon ends and they get quarreling.  Often, it ends badly.  A child is born, and we are happy to have them, until they grow into a sullen teenager.  A new job seems like a dream fulfilled, until we have to live with deadlines and demanding bosses.  People we love get sick and better, only to die later. The blessing that Christmas seems to promise is an illusion. In the end, it is just another day. 

But that’s why we need to remember that there are two Christmases, not just one.  The first coming of Christ is the first installment of the dream. The second installment has not yet come.  The first coming introduces us to the Savior. The Second Coming is when sets all things right. The first coming is the taste, the second is the feast. Nothing lasts now, because nothing is eternal. When He comes again, death itself will die.  Then all promises will come true.. 

It’s hard to remember when we face hard times that God really loves us. So God assures us of His love by the death and resurrection of His son. The Cross is the proof of God’s eternal promise of the second Christmas.  God’s sacrifices reminds us that the real hope is coming.

God has not revealed to us what heaven is like—that would be spoiling the surprise. But He has revealed to us the price tag. What He has in store for us cost him everything. The reality of that second Christmas yet to come must truly be fantastic.

One day, what is promised will be fulfilled/  Christ will come in the same way He departed, and bring with us all the presents and the Presence of God. Until that time, be satisfied with knowing that God is the one who is ordering everything to His glory.    

Suddenly. . .

The one word in the Shepherd's tale in Luke 2:8-22 that sums up the whole story is the word “suddenly.” “Suddenly” means something unexpected, without forewarning.  “Suddenly” can never have predicted or thought until it happens. “Suddenly” is something that is always a total surprise.

The visitation of angels to the shepherds was a “suddenly.”  These shepherds were probably not even Jewish. The Jews lived mainly in the towns and villages.  Bedouin Arabs grazed their sheep in open country, and lived in tents on the hillside, wandering from place to place wherever the grass grew.  They did not even have the prophecies of the Old Testament to guide them, and may not ever have heard the term “Messiah.”  They were just going about their business when “suddenly” it happened.

These shepherds were just ordinary people doing a routine, boring job.  Sheep sleep in the evening, so they were unlikely to wander off. Their job was to watch that they did not get stolen by rustlers or raided by animals.  They had to count them all night.  Imagine--they did for a living what we do to fall asleep—count sheep!  They just night watchmen for a sheep flock, having to stay awake and alert, but not challenged in any other way in their lives.  Like most of us, they liked it that way. But then, came a “suddenly” and their beliefs and their lives were shaken to the core.

 “Suddenly” happens to all of us. We may go for days, years, even decades doing pretty much the same old thing every day, when out of the blue comes a “suddenly” that changes everything. One day our boss tells us we’ve been laid off, a stranger’s car runs a red light and smashes into the driver’s side of our vehicle. a doctor tells us that we have cancer,  or a phone call alerts us that someone close to us has died. Most “suddenlys” seem bad when they come only a few “suddenly’s seem good when they happen.  Whether good or bad, they bring stress and confusion. It is human nature to prefer a comfortable, quiet, and predictable life style, like counting sheep on a hillside, to a world of stress and danger.  Social scientists call this preference

Homeostasis, the preference for doing the same old thing in the same old way.  We all hate it when something upsets our routine.  We’d rather be in a rut than hit by a “suddenly.”

These shepherds were peacefully settled on the hillside, when suddenly an angel appeared to them.  Today, we would call it a UFO sighting, since they probably did not know what an angel way.  Then the glory of the Lord shone around them.  What that “glory” looked like we do not know, but we usually imagine it as a great spotlight.  They shepherds would not have called it that since spotlights did not exist in their day.  It was a bright, blinding light. When they saw it, they were terrified—“sore afraid” the King James Version puts it.  They fell down like dead men on the ground in utter and complete terror.  Wouldn’t you?  They’d never seen an angel before, or a bright light of any kind.

The people of Jesus’ day were much more superstitious than we are today. They kept lucky charms on them to hold off “suddenlys”—amulets,  idols,  bags of magic mixtures.  I can imagine them holding them up to the angel, but they couldn’t make him go away.  He was suddenly there, and he was not leaving.

We go to great lengths, too, to keep the “suddenlys” from happening.  We get regular checkups, take vitamins, buckle our seat belts, get insurance against the unexpected. But the unexpected happens anyway. “Suddenly” comes when God wants it to come—and when they do, we, like the shepherds, are terrified. 

We Christians are a scared bunch of people, as a whole. We shouldn’t be but we are. Get a roomful of Christians together, and they will quickly start talking about how bad the world is getting—how bad Hollywood is, Washington is, or how godless their neighbors have become.  This is usually accompanied by worried looks, shaking heads, and the exclamation, “I don’t know what the world is coming to!” When the conversation turns to technology, it’s much the same story. We can’t believe how “suddenly” the world has changed, so it frightens us.

But Christians should not be scared of “suddenly.”  We have God’s assurance that He is in control.

There are two ways of facing the “suddenly” of like.  One is to avoid them by taking precautions.  We think that if we build a wall of precautions around our lives, keeping ourselves covered by careful living and cautious behavior, then nothing bad will happen to us.  We avoid things that make us afraid,  and try to reduce risk.  

There are two things wrong with this.  First, it doesn’t work. Nothing could have prevented those angels from appearing, just as nothing on earth can prevent accidents from happening, loved ones from dying, or cancer from growing. We fool ourselves if we think we are safe from “suddenlys”. 

The second, and greatest problem with the cautious life is that it basically godless. Instead of trusting God we trust ourselves.  We  assume that we have the power to be our own saviors if we are just smart enough or cautious enough to get by without incident.  But we are not God, and we cannot protect ourselves from “suddenlys”.

The other way of dealing with “suddenlys” is to endure by trusting Providence. Providence is an old word that means “God is in control.”  Providence is the belief that everything comes into our lives for a reason, and that even when unsettling things happen, it is not because Satan is attacking us, but because God is leading us.  This was the case when the angel said to the shepherds, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”   In other words, Don’t worry, This is a good thing,  which you will see.

It’s hard for us to imagine how the “suddenly” in our lives could possibly lead to good things, but they do.  Great blessings only come through great danger.  We cannot get a better world until our present world is shaken.  God is about to shake their world.

The angel continued: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."  God has just sent His Son into the world, and this will be a blessing to all people. 

Then comes the word “suddenly.” In verse 13:  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

Look at the exact phrasing of the passage here.  Luke does not say that the angel was suddenly joined by a multitude of the heavenly host—he said the heavenly host appeared.  They were just there. 

This is the only place in the Bible where a multitude of the heavenly host appeared.  Prophets such as Isaiah and John in Revelation had visions of heaven where they saw a heavenly host.  Jacob had a dream of the heavenly host going up and down from heaven, but these were only dreams or visions. This is the only place in the Bible where a heavenly host appears to announce anything.  But they did not arrive,  they appeared. In truth, they were there all along, the shepherds could not see them. 

Every day, we are surrounds by a multitude of the heavenly host. They are beside us, above us, around us, in uncounted numbers. We just can’t see them.  Only in the shining glory of the coming of the Lord does actual reality appear.  We go through our lives worried that God has abandoned us, when His angels are in every part of the universe we see.  When “suddenlys” happen, the veil of flesh is withdrawn, and the real reality of God’s providential care is revealed.  All of creation is alive with angels, and they are all rejoicing. 

All these angels are here to point us to something.  “This be a sign unto you You will find the Baby.”  Can it be any more clear that the angels want them to go meet Jesus?  This huge light show and angelic concert, which scared the wits out of the shepherds, is for one purpose—to get them to go meet the Savior. 

When “suddenlys” happen in our lives we should not automatically assume that the result of them is going to be something good. It can really be disastrous. The outcome of the “suddenly” depends on whether or not we go where it is pointing.  If the shepherds had stayed no the hillside that night, then nothing would have changed for them. They would assume it was some kind of collective hallucination and dismissed it. But some of them at least decided to go seek Jesus.  When they found Him, then everything else was changed.

When “suddenlys” happen to us, we have a choice—we can either ignore it, run from it, or listen to it.  The shepherd heard the message and turned to Jesus. 

Look at the emotional arc of this story.  They shepherds begin the night bored. Then they are terrified. Then they are curious.  Then they were joyfully amazed as is recorded in verses 17-18

“When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed.”

Just think—if they had yielded to their fears, they would never have been amazed. But when they trusted God, they met Jesus, and then they were filled with joyful amazement.  If they had not they would have been no different by the next night, and neither would the people who were blessed by them.  But because they found the courage to change their lifestyle for one night, they found Jesus, and were changed forever.

Have you ever seen a father playing with a small baby? The father takes the baby and pretends to throw him in the air. For a second, the baby is frightened. But then the father holds on to the Baby and grins, and the baby giggled. Then the father does it again, and the baby giggles again, until the baby knows that every time he pretends to throw he is really safe.  His father never lets God.

The father of the baby is not aware of it, but he is teaching the baby important life lessons.  Whenever our world is upset, the Father is not letting go.  Our Heavenly Father has never stopped surrounding us by a multitude of angels. He does not put us in apparent danger unless He is determined to get us out.  The “suddenlys” of life are just ways of pointing us to a greater joy beyond—the joy of becoming amazed by Jesus.

Christmas, I fear has ceased to us to be a “suddenly.” We’ve gotten used to the story and we are no longer amazed. So to get our attention, God has to scare us into listening.  Don’t let the “suddenlys” frighten you. They are God’s way of bringing us amazement, when we find our way to Jesus.

Running from the Light

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.   Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deut 6:4-9

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving.  In our house the most important event on Thanksgiving, is not the meal, but the Macey’s Thanksgiving Day parade.  Not that we actually watch it, but we did when our children were younger.  The kids wanted to start Christmas season in October, but we could not stand Christmas carols or talk about Santa so early in the year. So we set a rule that we would not talk about Christmas until Santa showed up in Times Square.  From that point on, the Macey’s Parade became at our house the official start of the Christmas season. 

I wish stores had a similar rule. Christmas decorations have been showing up in stores for more than a month now.  By now, the commercials of Christmas are in everywhere.  At some point we have to say “enough is enough.”

Please do not think though that I’m against Christmas.  However, the secular part of Christmas far overshadows the spiritual part. It is so bad that some believers are giving up the celebration altogether.  An article appeared a few years ago in Christianity Today entitled “let the Devil have the holiday!”  I can understand what the author means—sometimes it just doesn’t seem worth it to fight for true meaning of Christmas.

Even so, there are good spiritual reasons for embracing Christmas.  From the earliest times, Christians have celebrated Christ’s coming and birth. God’s people have chosen days to remember great events.  These dates enable us to write the Law of God on the calendar.   It is one way that the people of God remember the Law.  In Deuteronomy, God tells us to keep the memory of the Law alive by writing it on our doorposts and on our hands. In every way we can reinforce the memory of God’s works we should do so. Put it on your bumpers with stickers. Hang in on you walls as plaques, make God’s Word part of your lives in any way you can.

To do this, God commanded the keeping of Holy Days. The commanded holy days in the Bible included Passover, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of the Tabernacles.  In addition there are references to other holy days that were celebrated when great events occurred, such as Purim. These days were Sabbath days, just like Saturday observances.  So there were not just fifty-two Sabbaths in a year, but at least sixty-one.  Holy days were Sabbaths.

A Sabbath was a day with two purposes--to honor God and to do nothing else.  Imagine spending sixty one days a year doing nothing but honoring God! It was this kind of devotion of time and energy to worship that enabled God’s people to survive the sinfulness of the world. 

The two components of the Sabbath—honoring God and resting, we carried over into our Christian concept of Christmas and Easter.  These are holy days, to devote ourselves to Christ’s coming into the world, and Christ’s death and resurrection.  When they are rightly celebrated, they are a powerful tool to help us grow into the image of Christ, which is a Christian’s proper goal for life.

There is a common misconception today that the date of Christmas was chosen to coincide with a Roman celebrations.  Actually, December 25 was chosen in 336 AD, because they believed that Christ’s conception was believed to have occurred on March 25, nine months before Christmas. There is no historical evidence any date, but the early church was not interested in accuracy on dates. They only wanted a day to remember the birth of Christ.

Before Christmas and Easter, the early church celebrated a period of fasting and prayer, to prepare for the day. These times were called Advent and Lent. Something was given up for these times—food, time, or comfort.  After the holy day came a time of rejoicing and festivities, made better by the fasting before.    

What changed?  Christmas has become no longer a holy day. Now it is a holiday. The celebration of Christmas became bigger than Christmas itself and its meaning has become lost.

Think about what Deuteronomy says about the Law or God being posted on doorframes and worn on the hands and foreheads. Think about how some enterprising merchants could sell people plaques from their doorframes (they’re called mezuzahs) and boxes (they’re called phylacteries) to tie to their hands.  Suppose people who were not Jewish saw these boxes and plaques and decided to put them up, even though they did not believe the Law.  They decided instead of putting up God’s law, they would wear or display their own.  Then the message of wearing the plaques or the boxes would be lost. Everyone would have their own.  In time,  the message of the plaques and the boxes would be gone.

That’s what has happened to Christmas. Christmas is a commercial gold mine.  Other messages have been so attached to it, that the rememberance of Christ’s incarnation is lost. 

A holy day is a way of remembering God’s word. It is God’s Law written on the calendar.  Once the calendar has been filled with family and social events, the message of the date is lost.   The point of Christmas is o bring Jesus into our calendar as Lord of it, not as a date on it. 

As Sabbath is a day for honoring God and resting from our labors. A holiday is a day for rest, but it is not a day for honoring God.  As such, a holiday has benefit, though not as much as a Sabbath. We may not honor God on Labor Day or Memorial Day, but as least we get a day off. A holiday is a good thing, a time for restoration and enjoying God’s beautiful world, and love for others is a good thing, not a bad thing. But holidays without the memories of why they exist quickly just hollow days—they do not remain holidays for long.  Holidays, vacations, and Sabbaths give us that rest.  Take it away and work becomes destructive.  Without rest, holidays become hollow days.

On TV and he radio, biggest event of this last weekend was not Thanksgiving, but Black Friday—the day when stores are open twenty-four hours to accommodate Christmas shopping. Store clerks go without sleep so that people who have may rush to the stores to do their Christmas chores.  The spirit of the holiday is the spirit of Black Friday--rush, rush, rush, worry, worry, worry.  Did I get enough presents? Is dinner going to be ready?  Is our family Christmas gathering going to resemble a Norman Rockwell painting or train wreck on the Polar Express?  We see more heart attacks, suicides, and nervous breakdowns at Christmas than at any other time of year. Our holy day become a holiday, but now has become a hollow day, which neither brings us spiritual renewal nor any rest, and only a little enjoyment. For many, Christmas is a huge obligation that never ends.    

What’s the solution?

If we want to keep the Christ first, give Him the first of our time.

I want to challenge you to something this month that will change your life.  If you are not already doing it, commit at least a half hour of study and meditation.  Devote yourselves to devotions this Christmas.

I can imagine what may be going through many of your minds --“That’s impossible! There’s gifts to buy, kids to get off to school, cooking to do, pageants to hold. It all takes so much time!” 

But isn’t that the point? Everything takes time away from what we really should be doing. Christmas time is for Christ.  The Christmas season is a time for preparing to meet Him.   All the events of Christmas are for the Christian merely ways of reminding ourselves to do. 

Celebrate stillness this season.  “Be still and know that I am God.” If your holiday planning doesn’t allow you time for stillness, then you are too busy.  This month would be a good time to renew your prayer life.  This would be a good time to reread the gospels, all of them.  This would also be a good time for long, quiet walks, and thought of how God has blessed you in Christ.

My favorite moment of the Christmas season is not present openings or family gatherings, but Christmas Eve after the service, when all has been done and we can talk long walks through the neighborhood under the Christmas lights.  I the stillness of the night we feel closest to God, and can remember the glories of the incarnation.  Stillness is needed to sense God’s presence.

I also challenge you to worship this Christmas. Come and participate in Christmas services.  Most of us would never think of going through a Christmas season without trying to be with family.  But the family of God is our real family.    If you have to leave your family at the dinner table and go worship, do it, because He is the reason for the season.

I also challenge you to stay focused. We don’t have to give up Christmas, but we can reorient it.  We can stop buying so many presents, and such elaborate ones.  We can stop overeating and over-decorating. We can take the time to get back to our Christian heritage, our Christian roots, and see the blessings of the season, and the celebration of Christ.  

This is not a Law, but a suggestion. The purpose of all we do to remember Christ is to please Him, not appease Him.  When we are dealing with an angry person, we appease them. When we are dealing with a person who loves and accepts us, we seek to please them.

Imagine your mother shows up at your house unexpectedly, and you house is a mess. What would you do?  If you loved your mother, you would let her in. You might try to pick up around the house while she was there, but you would mainly enjoy her coming.  If you feared your mother, you would make some excuse not to let her in until you had cleaned house. Your housecleaning, because you know she would be angry, and you would want to appease her anger. At Christmas, God dropped in on us unexpectedly, and our lives were a mess when He came.  If we shut Him out, because are not ready, then our efforts are to appease Him. But God does not need appeasing.  His coming shows us that He already loves us.  What we do to worship and celebrate Him is to please Him, not appease Him   His love is already secure.

This season, celebrate that love.  Write it on the doorposts and on our hands, make the time to put Him first, and our Christmas will be a holy day, not a hollow day.