What exactly is it that we celebrate at Christmas?
The birth of the Christ of course, the one anointed by God, but
what does his birth mean? First of all it means that God is
among us in the messiness of our human condition. God took on our humanity as it is. He lived and
walked among us with all the chaos of our world, which really hasn’t
changed that much since then. We still have plenty of
corruption and violence, just as there was in the time of Jesus.
Palestine was an occupied country at the time, occupied by the Romans
who could be extremely brutal. And yet Jesus comes into the
middle of this. So he knows what it is like to live in the
middle of chaos, injustice, sickness and all the difficulties that we
live with. He is with us in this.
The event of Christmas also shows us that He came in
the most unexpected way. The Jewish people were waiting for the
Messiah, the anointed one of God, but He came in a way that they did
not expect. He was as great as they hoped for, but not in the
way that they were expecting and so He went largely unnoticed.
All through the Bible there are accounts of people
whom God chose to work and speak through. They are nearly
always people that we would consider weak and unimportant. It
seems that God likes to do this, no doubt to remind us that God
doesn’t need human strength, greatness or ability. God works
through whomever He will so long as we are open to it. One of
the beautiful things about this is that it means God is accessible to
all of us, from the simplest and least educated to the most brilliant
minds. No one is excluded. It says in the first reading,
‘You Bethlehem Ephrathah, the least of the clans of Judah,
out of you will be born for me the one who is to rule over Israel’
(Micah 5:1). This is an ongoing theme that we find everywhere
in the Bible. The Lord uses the least of us, the ones we would
never think of choosing.
The event of Christmas is also the beginning of a new kind of hope for humanity. Jesus would offer his own life for
the sins of humanity, so that we could reach the happiness that God
created us for. You could say that Christmas and Easter are
really two halves of the same event. And the reason it is an
event of great joy is not only because humanity is once and for all
set free from the prospect of eternal death, but also because Jesus
taught us what the meaning of our life is; why we are here. We
are created out of love, to share in the happiness of God. That
happiness hopefully begins in this life but will be fulfilled in the world to
come. Our life here is a time of love and service. We are
free to love or not love, to choose for God or not. God has
given us that freedom and the responsibility that goes with it.
But to know that our life has a purpose is all important. What
keeps us going when we are struggling if we feel that our life has no
meaning, no purpose? We need to know that we have a reason for being here, and we do. That is why Jesus is the Light of the
world. Light shows up what is there in the dark. With
light you can see where you are going. Jesus who is this light is the one who
helps us to see why we are here.
The preparations for Christmas all around us are wonderful and
magical. I think that especially in this part of the world
where it is so dark and dreary at this time of the year, it is
beautiful to suddenly have our town and homes lit up with coloured
lights, candles and decorations. All of this is to celebrate
the coming of the Saviour and the event that set us free. Even
though many people will celebrate Christmas without knowing what they
are celebrating, yet in a strange way God is still glorified in all
of this. Our society will celebrate the coming of
Christ even though many will no longer realise that that is what they
are celebrating.
There is a line in one of the Psalms which says,
‘Man’s anger will serve to praise you’ (Psalm 76:10). It
seems like an unusual thing to say. How could man’s anger be
a source of praise to God? Perhaps what it means is that
ultimately all of God’s creation gives praise to God just by the
fact that it is there. All the celebrations of Christmas give
praise to God, even if many people aren’t even aware of what they
are really celebrating. It is a reminder to us that God brings
good out of everything, even when it is done for the wrong reason.
So as we celebrate Christmas maybe we can take a
moment at some stage to give praise to God in our own way, for all
that God has done for us; giving us hope, light, purpose and the
promise of eternal happiness should we choose it.
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