December 17 - The Christ of Christmas

The Christ of Christmas

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (John 1:14)

Too many times, people want to pull Christ out of Christmas.  We need to remember that Christ is Christmas and Christmas is Christ.  It’s not a neutral holiday like “Labor Day.” It’s an intentional holiday to celebrate God coming into the world. When we try to pull Christ out of Christmas, we reveal our ignorance as people and as a nation.  But maybe more importantly, we reveal how powerful and convicting Christ is to people who want to get rid of Him.  The reason is, Christ confronts us with a decision as Jesus knew the contention He brought and it’s still true today. Truthfully, the baby in the manger can make people a little too uncomfortable.

In the midst of a world that has attempted in many ways to take Christ        out, we can be grateful that He came into it. Because He did, He changed everything around us.  John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” (The Message)  God in heaven became a human being.  He came into our world to change our circumstances.  It is a historical fact.  We mark the world’s calendars by his arrival.  Every check you write or anytime you write the date we are reminded that Christ came into the world 2014 years ago.  If we celebrate the birthday of other people, we certainly need to mark that of the One who changed our world.  There are 3 mysteries that we will never fully grasp as much as we try.  They are the “Trinity,” “Eternity,” and the “Incarnation.”  The incarnation has to do with how God became a human being.  In Ephesians, Paul writes, “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” Ephesians 2:12 NIV)  This shows our condition prior to Christ coming into the world.  But it also shows us prior to knowing Christ.  What an ominous thought of how different our world was before Christ came but how different it is because He did come. 

In 1946, the Christmas Classic, It’s A Wonderful Life, was released. In the movie, George Bailey had a gift that he wasn’t sure he wanted.. His gift was the gift of life.  And his life had seemingly fallen apart all around him.  He just knew he was going to lose his business, his livelihood. He faced prison for something he hadn’t done.  And as a result of all this… his family faced shame and poverty.                    In desperation, he pleads with his arch-enemy (Mr. Potter) for a loan on his life insurance. Potter gleefully observes “George, you’re worth more dead than alive!” And thus, George Bailey decides that his only solution is to throw himself off the bridge into the frigid waters below and at least supply his family with the money from his life insurance.  But God steps in and an angel (Clarence                                      Oddbody…Angel Second Class) is sent to earth to stop George Bailey before he can take his life. But how do you convince a man that the gift he wants to                                                 

grant George Bailey’s wish and show him what life would’ve been like if he’d never been born. So, as George tries to get back to his home, he finds that…                    • the town he’d worked so hard to build up and protect had become a den of iniquity and evil

• the pharmacist – who George saved from a tragic mistake – has become the town drunk
• his brother Harry whom he’d saved from falling thru the ice, dies because George wasn’t there to save him and the hundreds of men died that Harry would have saved during the war, because Harry wasn’t there to save them.
•  and the beautiful woman he’d married and had had such wonderful children with ended up becoming a wretched, dejected and lonely spinster.
            

George Bailey finally understood how wonderful his life had been because he was allowed to see how much would have been lost if he had never been born. That - which he’d been tempted to throw away.  He came to realize was too valuable to lose.

In his book, What If Christ Had Never Been Born, Dr. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe share what the world would be like if Christ had not come shares about countless places that Christ has affected our world.  All the founders of modern science were Christians including Newton, Boyle, Pasteur, Pascal.  Free enterprise and work ethic were established on the laws       of the 10 commandments.  Art, music and literature had it’s champions in Christians such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Milton, Bach and Handel who wrote       the famous “Hallelujah Chorus.  But each of them remind us that if you take Christ away, you take away a great deal of our world.  Sadly, people like and benefit from all the blessings Christ brought when He came into the world.  If you take Christ out of Christmas, you have to get rid of some of our greatest societal institutions

           

•Take Christ out of Christmas and you have to get rid of the Christ centered churches:   Bill Hybels has said, “As the churches go, so goes our nation.”

•If you take Christ out of Christmas, you have to get rid of the  world changing organizations:  Hospitals and orphanages were started by the                                                        church.   Get rid of Christ and you get rid of the hospitals and orphanages…how many want that?)

•Finally, take Christmas out of Christmas and you have to get rid of the United State of America as we know it:   The United States is the greatest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world.  There is a reason that no other nation can replicate what our country has become…that is because they don’t want anything.  But they want to get rid of the one who brought.  Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation…but sin is a disgrace.”

                

Get rid of the Christ of Christmas and you get rid of all of these areas.  It’s a good reason to always keep “Christ” in your “Christmas.”   Good things happen when you do.

Terry Risser

Reflections:

1)   Why do many people take Christ out of Christmas?

2)   What can you do to make sure He is part of your Christmas?

Consider reading the Word today:

Copyright 2014- Terry Risser