Christmas Greeting

There are a lot of messages that fly around Christmas, like — “Christmas is about love”, “it is about family,” it’s about gifts,” “it’s about Santa Clause,” “lights,” “indoor trees,” “it’s about giving,” “Turkey,” “ham,” “seasonal songs,” “shopping,” and of course “Shepherds, sheep, wisemen, angels, and baby Jesus.” What if I told you that Christmas’ isn’t about any of these things?

Christmas is a mystery, a veil temporarily pulled back, a battle. Christmas is birth and death, bondage and freedom, grace and mercy, love against the background of hatred, goodness pushing past evil, and light breaking through the darkness to give us a glimpse of God.

The smile on a step-father’s face, the gleam in the new mother’s eyes, the wonder of the shepherds and the quizzical expression of the angles who looked down in awe of God’s work of Grace. All of this but a blimp in the course of time, a prequel to a more dramatic moment of God’s relentless love and Grace.

This is Christmas in all its splendor, for which we gather in large groups and small, to worship the God who made it all possible. This is Christmas, I’m just saying — MERRY CHRISTMAS!