This Christmas, Think of Christ
Khen Lim
Image source: thebloominidiot.wordpress.com
In recent years, Christmas has become a strange time even for
us Christians. It no longer seems to have that same spirit of joy and
celebration. Instead it’s been nothing more than a holiday break for many who
decry its obvious connection to Christ. There are even Christians who dismiss
the significance of Christmas, citing a host of reasons to justify not
celebrating it. As for secularists, atheists and sheer anti-Christians,
Christmas is just a winter holiday and nothing else. Thanks to Starbucks and
their ilk, it’s not even Christmas anymore because the name has become
irrelevant.
So what is the purpose of Christmas?
These days, Christmas is just an opportunity and nothing more.
A commercial opportunity. An opportunity to go for a long weekend with the
family. In Australia, it’s a nice time for an outdoor barbeque. In Malaysia,
it’s a good excuse to get some shopping done and go visit the folks back home.
For many, it might be a good time
to celebrate the end of a hard year or the completion of exams. It could be a
good day to hang up the feet and relax. For some others, President-elect Trump
would be a fantastic reminder that perhaps, this Christmas, there’s something
special and ‘worth celebrating.’ All in all, it has nothing to do with
Jesus.
For those of us who put in the hard work and celebrate
Christmas for what it really is, there’s a lot to go through and it begins at
least a month before the day comes around. There’s the shopping to do and if
you have a large family, it gets very hectic right to the last minute.
There
have been years for me in the past where Christmas shopping was all done on the
night before simply because work commitments didn’t afford enough time to do it
any earlier. Putting up the Christmas tree and decorations, the lighting and
the general clean-up takes time and effort and so it is with all the cooking.
Prior to that, there’s the customary sending of greeting cards albeit these
days, via e-greeting websites. To enjoy Christmas, we all have to go through
all of these and more!
Still, we somehow know that Christmas is worth celebrating
even if the secular world doesn’t. From Scripture, we learn from the angel’s inaugurating
message to the shepherds of Bethlehem, bearing God’s wonderful news that
warrant our rejoicing, celebration and jubilance:
“‘Don’t be afraid,’ he
said. ‘I bring you Good News that will bring great joy to all people.’” (Lk
2:10, NLT)
The angel’s inaugurating message bears great prominence in
three ways. Firstly, through the angel, God’s message here is a personal one to
all of us. He speaks to our individual hearts when he said, “I bring you…” meaning that this joy isn’t just
corporate but very much for each and every one of us. Secondly, there is great
optimism and hope because the message is about “Good News” and “great joy.” The
news is joyous. The news will give us reason to cheer and be happy. The news
gives us the perfect occasion to celebrate. Thirdly, just as it is personal,
the message is also for “all people.” It is meant to be enjoyed by one and all
because the birth of Jesus will affect the lives of everyone throughout the
world.
Through the angel’s inaugurating message, we have every reason
to believe that God wants us to be happy and that His gift to us – by the birth
of His Son Jesus – is meant for us to savour. It is a tremendous gift that no
one else can match and it is this unique once-and-only-once opportunity that we
ought to understand because it came from God.
All of this should make us
reflect on why Christmas is unlike any other event to observe in the world for
it is God’s prologue to saving us and it begins with the birth of Jesus,
culminating in one of the most visible verses in Scripture where Jesus explains
to us why His Father had brought Him into our world:
“For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16, NKJV)
If nothing at all, this is love personified by the Father for
all of us. In fact, the joyousness of Christmas is centred on the love of the
Father for us. He loved us so much that He would despatch His Son to us as a
human so that we may better understand, first hand, His fiery brand of love for
us. In human form, we get to put on record how well we have come to know Him,
how we learn to have faith in Him and by His love for us, how we can love Him
back.
Through Scripture’s New Testament, we have all of this and call it the
Good News and it begins with the incarnation in which Jesus was born human,
became one of us and spent His adult life teaching us about His Father and
through all of this, we get the best opportunity to understand what He is
really like in human life.
Christmas – as in the birth of Christ – is a gift from the
Father to us because we are very dear to Him. After all, because we are created
in His image, we have the exclusivity over all other living beings to strike a
very personable relationship with the Father. That is why in a heartbeat, He
could take the initiative to send His Son so that we may truly appreciate the
seriousness of His love for us and in return, to help us understand how much,
in return, we really need Him.
Make no mistake about it – God’s love for us is what Christmas
epitomises. Beyond the birth of Christ, Christmas could be as good a time as
any to validate the Father’s love for all of us. His gift of Earth is
resplendent in the nature around us that He has created. The varieties. The
diverseness. The flora and fauna. The rock formations. The sweeping plains,
gorges, valleys, plateaus and the powerful meandering rivers, waterfalls and
lakes, the lush forests and majestic mountain ranges as well as the wide oceans
and intimidating deserts.
The awesome uniqueness that God has instilled in all
His creations mean that no two of anything is ever similar. Every leaf is as
different to every snowflake. Even twins born, identical or otherwise, are not
exactly alike. God has no penchant for clones or replications. His palette for
differentiation means all of us are original masterpieces of His creation, born
from a boilerplate meant to be used only once before it is broken and thrown
away.
God created the world in such magnificence because He enjoys
the view and knows we will too. As He loves what He sees, He knows we share in
His enjoyment too. God has a habit of watching gleefully at how we enjoy His
creations in so many incredible ways – visually and aurally and everything in
between. He gave us tastebuds so we could relish the many different flavours
the world has to offer. He equipped us with eyes to capture the imagery around
us replete with all the wonderful hues, inspiring shapes and motion. He made
sure we could hear the rush of a powerful waterfall as much as we can enjoy all
the sounds of Nature as much as the myriad rhythms and timbre of music around
us. We can also take in the aroma of delicious foods, natural fruits and the
delectable fragrance of flowers.
We obviously don’t deserve such attention from a pure, perfect
and holy God but nonetheless, powered by His love, His gifts remain a powerful
statement. 1 Timothy 6:17 (NLT) underscores this:
“Teach those who are rich
in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so
unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for
our enjoyment.”
As I’ve said, He needn’t have done it and we don’t deserve it.
Yet He did it because He loves us.
Yet despite all of these wonderful works of Nature that are
testimony to God’s immense creativity, it’s not only until Christ was born that
we really understand His penultimate love for us. In other words, no works of
nature could help us to fully understand or appreciate God’s love. It was only
when the birth of Jesus that we get to feel the full sense of His love and
since then, nothing in this world was ever the same anymore. The birth of Jesus
changed everything forever and for very good reasons.
While God in His infinite wisdom could have shown us His love
in a great number of many other ways, He knew how best to reach us. Had it been
apes that He wanted to communicate with, He would have become an ape. If it
were snakes, He would take the form of a snake to communicate. But since He
wanted to reach into our hearts, He took the form of Man. Being Our Creator,
God knew what the most compelling way to get to us and it was through the birth
of Jesus as a Man that we can then come face to face with His statement of
love.
As a Man, Jesus came but not as a prophet or an emissary or a
politician. He was neither a warrior nor a celebrity. He was but a humble
carpenter but in Himself, He was no mere despatcher but as the Son of God. He
came as Himself so that in Him alone, we would know who it is whom we love in
person. The Father knew very well that if He wanted the people to truly feel
His love in the most wondrous way, He would have to do it personally. He would
have to bring His Son to us and take the form of Man. That is what Christmas is
about and that is specifically how God defined it.
In God is love. In fact, Scripture says God is love. The very
nature of God is love. God epitomises love. To know God is to know love. In
other words, it is not a question of whether or not God has love or how much
love He has. The very essence of God Himself is love and it is this love that
explains the very existence of life as we know it. It is this embodiment of
love that we are created:
“The Lord is good to
everyone. He showers compassion on all His creation.” (Ps 145:9, NLT)
For everything that God creates, He does it out of love and
out of love, He takes pleasure in creating it. If He did not love what and how
He did, He wouldn’t have created it in the first place be it the Milky Way
within the vast universe or all the living things on Earth. Were it not for His
love, we would not have been created with such painstaking attention to detail
all the way right down to the complex design of our brain including the
exquisite manner in which we can feel emotionally and pray to Him:
“For we are God’s
masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good
things He planned for us long ago.” (Eph 2:10, NLT)
Why did God, in His nature of love, create us? Why would He
create us in His image? What was behind His motive to do any of this? We may
never know the truth behind this and since the Bible doesn’t offer a specific
answer, the only thing we are sure of is that we are all created to be loved by
God. He created all of us so that He may shower His love on us. It is because
of His love that we live and breathe and are able to enjoy the sights and
sounds of His creation everywhere in the world.
Whenever we do so, it is as if
God is whispering into our ears, “See all that? Because I love you so much, I
have made all things beautiful for you.” If we were not part of His plan, He
would not have wanted us, much less loved us. For every baby that enters this
world enters as part of God’s plan. Without His plan, no babies would be born
to any family.
Because we are all central to His big plan that He deems us
worthwhile to be saved from damnation. That is why Christ was born. It is His
strategy that begins with the birth of Jesus. We are so important and so loved
by God that He had us in His mind even before the Earth became our world. We
are the reason for His unending love and we are the objective of His salvation
plan and that is why when He chose Earth, He made sure it was perfect for us.
In the end, our importance to Him is never in doubt:
“He chose to give birth to
us by giving us His true word. And we, out of all creation, became His prized
possession.” (Jm 1:18, NLT)
More than anything else living, we are His reason for
Christmas. We are the conviction behind His unconditional love. His love is
guaranteed whether or not we have a bad hair day. His love is always on offer
no matter if we know which side of the bread is buttered. His love is
non-negotiable and freely available (though the price He eventually paid was
very high) and even though we may change over time, God’s love is not only
everlasting but immutable. It is this love of God that doesn’t only underline
the confidence of our faith but it also signifies the promise of Christmas.
Because God’s love is immutable, everlasting and
non-negotiable, it means that whatever it is that we may have done in our
lives, He will never cease loving us. The nature of the Father is such that it
is on His terms and the basis of His innate character that springs His love. It
is not based on our moods or disposition or character but His flawless
integrity that guarantees His love. And because God is love, who He is
ultimately determines everything that is bound in love in our lives:
“May you experience the
love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be
made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
(Eph 3:19, NLT)
As I walk down Bourke Street Mall where the main shopping
display window of Melbourne’s famous Myer Department Store traditionally
displays the scene of the Nativity every Christmas season, I stop to wonder if
people envision Christ only as a perpetually cute little baby and nothing else.
It’s not hard to understand why.
Even Christmas cards show Him as a baby in the
manger. Many churches would have built up similar scenes as the typical
diorama. Some small towns have something similar in a public display as well.
All of them invariably embrace the concept of Jesus as a newborn in swaddling
clothes, helplessly in Mary’s arms.
But Christmas is far more than just Jesus being a cute cuddly
baby. If He had remained forever as one, we would all have remained a sorry lot
because He wouldn’t be able to fulfil what the Father had sought Him out to do.
Thankfully, like all of us, Jesus grew up and became an exemplary adult for us
to emulate. He went on to live a life that was pleasing to God. He inspired
those who listened to Him. He taught us truth nobody else could. He revealed
the Father in ways no one seemed interested to.
He comforted and healed those who were grieving or hurt or in
pain. And ultimately He paid a heavy ransom of all our sins and nailed them on
to the cross with His life but He fulfilled the promise and returned,
resurrected, in order that we may have the hope of salvation. In His
resurrection, Jesus proved we could follow Him into paradise. All of this
constitutes the Good News that could only have taken place because it all began
on Christmas Day when He was born.
Merry Christmas to all of you out there wherever you are.
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