I came across this tree this week. I think it is especially beautiful. Putting up beautiful decorations is one of the normal things people do at Christmas. Why?
About two weeks ago we began singing Christmas songs in church, and you may have begun playing Christmas music at home. (One of my favorites is “Mary Did You Know.”) Few things communicate Christmas more than the special songs we bring out for one month of the year. Why do we do that?
There is probably one or more people in your life to whom you are planning to give a Christmas gift. Why did people long ago begin exchanging gifts at Christmas?
Yesterday we enjoyed a Christmas lunch after the worship service. Why do we have special meals at Christmas?
The answer to all the above questions is, we are celebrating. We eat and sing to celebrate something good. We exchange gifts and decorate to celebrate something good.
We celebrate that there is an all-powerful, infinitely loving, absolutely pure and eternally living person at the center of the universe who is committed to saving those who trust in him. He is the Son of God. He is unimaginably good. He came to earth and became a man to die for our sins, save us from death, and defeat our worst enemy Satan. No matter what happens to us in this life, our faith in Jesus assures us we have an eternal life awaiting us that will be gloriously good and free from sorrow.
Believers in Jesus have every reason to celebrate.
The depth of our joy at Christmas is tied directly to the strength of our walk as a disciple of Jesus and the degree of our knowledge of the Lord. The more you learn from Jesus, the more he means to you. The more he cleanses your life of what is sinful and broken, the more grateful you are to him. And the more he rebuilds your life, the more you love him.
“Joy to the world. The Lord has come!”
With much love,
Craig Brian Larson