For many believers, including myself, Christmas has always been a happy season. A joyful time filled with worship, spending time with family, beautiful decorations, lights, pleasant memories and lots of great food! Personally, I always remember how my mother would prepare a tremendous dinner of fried chicken and chocolate cake, my favorite foods. She and my father would try their best to make it a special time because Christmas Day was also my birthday. Precious Memories! How they linger!
Yet, as we grow older, it often becomes difficult to approach this season with the same happiness. We experience the loss of loved ones, or are weighed down and burdened by the many struggles of life. Our circumstances change. Sometimes, those precious memories sting. It becomes important that we remind ourselves and others why we celebrate and set our minds on heavenly truths and divine promises.
Christmas is a season in which we celebrate the Nativity and Incarnation of our Lord. It is a time to spotlight these essential, non-negotiable truths with an attitude of reflective contemplation, thanksgiving and reverential worship. It is also right to approach this time with glad and grateful hearts, because the birth of Christ is truly a message of “good tidings and great joy.”(Luke 2:10) It brings tears to my eyes when I consider that our Lord, the Eternal Son of God, humbled himself and willingly “took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”(Phil 2:7-8) Jesus came purposely into this broken world, driven by a deep love for us, to “save his people from their sins.” (Matt 1:21) May we never neglect to remember that these teachings are deeply embedded in the Gospel message and should be affirmed, proclaimed and celebrated throughout the year. It is a message of hope for God’s people and a testimony of the faithfully fulfilled promises of the Most High. This is why we can sing Joy to the World even in the midst of sorrow!
Throughout the divinely inspired writings of the Old Testament, we find innumerable promises concerning Christ: His work of redemption, His sufferings on our behalf, His Eternal Nature, His Deity, and His miraculous virgin birth. Some are explicit and direct, while others are given to us in foreshadows, types and symbols. These prophecies of the coming Messiah, the Anointed One, all point to and are fulfilled in Jesus!
For instance, Christ’s miraculous Birth and the Incarnation were spoken of and foretold hundreds of years beforehand by Micah and Isaiah. These two prophets were contemporaries, with ministries that overlapped during the Eighth Century B.C. Did they know each other? We simply do not know. Yet, their messages complimented each other in proclaiming the birth and divine nature of the coming Messiah. Isaiah penned “Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immauel” (God with us). (Isaiah 7: 14) He also wrote “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6) Coupled with that, Micah also prophesied where he was precisely to be born: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” (Micah 5:2)
The wonderful, joyful promises of Christ’s Birth and Incarnation were fulfilled when the “Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) Here, Jesus is referred to as the Logos or eternal, divine, living, Word, active in the creation of all things (John 1:3). Before penning these words, John begins his Gospel with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John1:1) This reveals the profound mystery of the Trinity-One God, Three Persons. Jesus, the Living Word, is co-equal and co eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, deserving of praise and worship. Yet, our Lord, the Unique Son of God, humbled Himself and “was made flesh” and “dwelt among us”, as foreshadowed or typified when God tabernacled and dwelt among His people in the wilderness by means of the sanctuary. (Ex. 25:8) This is wonderfully summarized by Charles Wesley in Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail th’ incarnate Deity, pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel!” This is truly joyful, wonderful news!
Yet, while many Christians are in a festive mood, let us never fail to remember those who are hurting or overwhelmed with grief, sorrow or need during this time of the year. As Charles Dickens wrote in A Christmas Carol, “it is a time, of all others, when want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices.” Dickens was imperfect and rather eccentric, but he was nevertheless a believer and understood from personal experience how it felt to suffer in neglect while other Christians were making merry. Some are remembering loved ones they have lost, struggling with financial burdens or simply alone. Again, these sorrows seem to be more sharply felt during the Christmas Season. What better way can we express our faith in Jesus and celebrate His birth than to reach out to these precious souls and let them know they are not forgotten? Remember it behooves us to “weep with them that weep”, showing love, empathy and grace to our brothers and sisters in the Lord. (Romans 12:15) Merry Christmas!