Christmas Is About Salvation

Christmas is right around the corner. Now is the time to get down to the crux of the matter.

Christmas is about salvation.

The Christmas story is about the birth of Christ, and it is truly only the beginning. God did not take the form of man simply to have a good story to tell, or a reason to celebrate. God was not trying to connect with His people by appearing in lesser form. The purpose of that first Christmas was for Christ to die on a cross.

Chapters 1 and 2 of Matthew, which tell the story of the birth of Jesus, would hold no hope for us without Chapters 27 and 28, which tell of His crucifixion, death, and resurrection. Luke Chapter 2 has no power over sin without Chapters 23 and 24. That babe born in a manger had to die on cross so that we may have life.

Maybe this isn't the uplifting Christmas story you want to hear, but there is no story, no truth more full of hope, joy, and love. The story of Christmas is the story of God giving us the gift of life through the death of His Son. If Christ were only born, that would not have been enough. He had to be born, live, and then give up His life to give us ours.

I want you to know this truth. To live, you must accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. You, like I, are a sinner. You cannot do anything about that. Even if you never sinned again (and we all will!), your sins have earned you death. Not the death of the body, but the death of the soul. Eternal death. Not annihilation, but eternal suffering and punishment in hell. That's not pretty. That's reality.

The Christmas story is about being saved from that. When we as Christians talk about salvation and being saved, we mean being saved from the punishment our sins deserve. The wages of sin is indeed death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23). God is offering you that gift.

All you have to do is accept it. Accept the truth that you are a sinner, that the cost of your sins is hell, and that you don't want that. Accept that the only way to be saved from what you deserve is through the gift of God--Jesus Christ. Believe that Jesus is God, that He died in your place so that God would forgive your sins through His blood. Talk to God, telling Him you believe this to be true, and accept it as true in your innermost being. That's called faith. That's called salvation.

Do this, and you accept the gift. The greatest gift ever known.

Christmas is about the gift of life. To us. From God.

Merry Christmas indeed!

Christmas Is About Grace And Mercy

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. No matter what the world has tried to make it, that is what it is. A celebration of God's incredible gift to us: His Son. As John 3:16 says, God so loved the world that He gave up His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will never have to die a spiritual death, but instead will have eternal life. Jesus was born in the flesh so that He could die in the flesh. That's the only way we could be saved from our sins.

What does this have to do with grace and mercy? Everything!

In our Christian faith, grace is the unmerited favor of God. Another way to define grace is an undeserved gift. When God sent His Son to live among us, we received an undeserved gift. God did not send Jesus because we deserved Him, or because we had earned such an incredible prize. God sent Jesus because He loves us. Our sins earned us death; God bestowed His grace, His unmerited favor, upon us in the form of His Son, our Savior.

Likewise, mercy is compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power and right to punish. Mercy is the withholding of deserved punishment. God, because of His love for us, chose not to punish us as we deserved. He has shown us compassion, and offered us forgiveness in the name of His Son. Jesus came to save us as an act of mercy on the part of God the Father.

To prepare for Christmas is to recognize the grace and mercy of our God. He is under no obligation to forgive us for our sins. Only because of His love, His mercy, His grace has He offered His Son in place of our punishment. Without Christ, there would be no forgiveness of sin. Without God's mercy and grace, there would be no Christ, no Christmas.

As we get ready for Christmas, we must remember grace and mercy. As God has given us unmerited favor, undeserved gifts, so should we be gracious towards those around us. We have not earned Christmas; it is God's gift to us. Maybe you know someone who has not earned your favor; give it to them anyway. Grace isn't about giving to someone what they deserve--that's justice. Grace is giving what isn't deserved. That's what God did for us.

Mercy is the other side of the coin. God has given us Christ to stand in our place of punishment. He has withheld the punishment we deserve that is within His power and right to deliver. Without mercy, there would be no Christmas. As you remember that, perhaps there is someone in your life, or perhaps you will encounter someone in the next few days, who doesn't deserve mercy. Just remember, you didn't deserve it either.

Grace is unmerited favor. Mercy is the withholding of deserved punishment. Christ is God's response to both. Christmas is our celebration of Christ. Therefore, Christmas is about grace and mercy.

Remember that as you get ready for Christmas this week.

Christms Is About Hope, Joy, And Love

The four week period prior to Christmas is known as Advent. Churches and families often have an Advent wreath with five candles. One candle is lit on each Sunday leading up to Christmas, and the final candle, which represents Christ, is lit on Christmas Day. The four candles leading up to the Christ candle represent Hope, Preparation, Joy, and Love.

These four ideas are much of what Christmas is about.

Christmas is about hope.


What is hope? Hope is about expectation and desire. To have hope is to have confident expectation something is going to happen. Christian hope is about confidence and faith. When we say our hope is in Christ, we are not only saying we want something to happen, we confidently expect something to happen. We have faith that something will happen. What is our hope in Christ? What is that something? Salvation and eternal life.

We celebrate Christmas because with the birth of Christ we were given hope. The hope of eternal life. The hope of reconciliation with God. The hope of salvation.Without the birth of our Savior, we would have very little hope indeed. We would be lost in our sins, and spiritually dead. With Christ, we have the hope of life eternal.

This is how Paul presented this idea to the Christians in Rome.  “And again, Isaiah says, ‘The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him.’  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Romans 15:12-13.

Christmas is about preparation.

This is our third week talking about preparing for Christmas. We talked about how Joseph and Mary prepared for that first Christmas, and what that means for us. Christmas is not to be taken lightly. It is not something to go into blindly. Christmas is serious, and serious matters deserve serious preparation.

God prepared the world for that first Christmas with a series of events and people. One of those people was John the Baptist. As Luke wrote about him, “As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:  ‘A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.  Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low.  The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.  And all mankind will see God’s salvation.‘  Luke 3:4-6.

 Prepare the way for the Lord. All mankind will see God's salvation. That's what preparing for Christmas is all about.

Christmas is about joy.

This is the message an angel of God brought to some shepherds keeping watch outside Bethlehem that night long ago. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:8-11.

News of great joy for all the people. A Savior has been born. Our Savior! What greater joy could there be? Christmas is to be celebrated! Celebrated with great joy and elation. Salvation has come! Our Rescuer has arrived! We should receive Christmas like a drowning man receives a lifeline. With overflowing joy!

Christmas is about love.

For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Christ came because of God's love. God gave of His Son, of Himself, because He loves us. That baby in a manger was there because of love. Not the love of Mary, nor Joseph, but God. God's love for us. For me. For you. God loves you.

That is what Christmas is about. God's love for you and for me.

As you get ready for Christmas this week, remember that we are celebrating our Savior come as a babe in the flesh. Our hope, our joy, and the love of God wrapped up in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger.

That's what Christmas is about.

Getting Ready For Christmas--Mary Had Faith

Mary, mother of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

In our first post of the week, we saw how Mary was willing to be used of God, no matter the cost. In our second, we recognized how she remained humble even when she realized she was to play a part in the most important birth in the history of everything. The third characteristic Mary demonstrated in preparing for that first Christmas is perhaps the most important one of all.

Faith.

As I read the story of the birth of Christ in Matthew and Mark, I am struck by Mary's faith. When told she was to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit, she replied, "May it be to me as you have said." She didn't question whether God could do this thing He had never done before. When told her cousin Elizabeth, who had been declared barren, was to have a child, she did not doubt.

Mary didn't question if God could, or if God would. She accepted that God is. He is capable. He is willing. He is true to His word. In the face of the impossible, she gave everything over to God.

That's faith.

According to Hebrews 11:1, faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Mary hoped in God, and was certain that, even though she could not see Him or His work, He would do what He said.

To travel to Bethlehem 9 months pregnant, Mary had to have faith that God would care for her. To flee with her young son to Egypt, she had to believe God was with them, even when they could not see Him. When told to return to their home, she had to hope in God that He would not lead them astray.

Mary gave her life over to God. His plan was not her plan, but she made her plan God's plan. She trusted that He knew best. She put her hope, her trust, her everything, in Him.

That's faith.

Christmas is about faith. It's about believing a humanly impossible story. It's about accepting spiritual things we cannot fully comprehend. It's about a promise hoped for that we cannot see or otherwise measure. It's about God, and our faith in Him.

To truly prepare for Christmas, we, like Mary, have to have faith. Yes, we can celebrate Christmas without faith--millions around the world do. But without faith in God, what are they celebrating?

Without faith, Christmas is meaningless. It's just another day. Worse than that, without faith in Christ, it becomes something else entirely. It becomes a celebration of the world and materialism. It becomes idolatry.

If faith is not central to your preparations for Christmas, then you're not getting ready for what Christmas really is.

Getting Ready For Christmas--Mary Was Humble

When Mary learned from the angel Gabriel that she was to give birth to the Son of the Most High, the Messiah, she did what ladies often do--she went to tell someone she trusted. This happened to be her older cousin, Elizabeth, who herself was also miraculously pregnant (Luke 1:36).

That conversation could have taken many paths, and most probably did as Mary spent three months with her trusted friend. We don't know the full extent of what Mary and Elizabeth discussed, but what we do know is how Mary initially responded to Elizabeth identifying her as the mother of my Lord (Luke 1:43).

It is hard for us to imagine the importance of that title, the mother of my Lord. Mary was carrying the Messiah, the Savior of the World, in her womb. The One foretold by the prophets of old. The answer to God's long-standing promise of a Deliverer. Israel's awaited King. Immanuel. God with us.

Elizabeth's recognition of this world-changing truth gushes out in Luke 1:41-45. Add this to the visit from God's Messenger, Gabriel, put yourself in Mary's place, and ask yourself how you would respond. Would you be excited? Of course. Would you be fearful and intimidated? Probably. Now, ask yourself this question: Would you have been proud?

Would you have thought more of yourself than you should have? Would you have thought that perhaps God had chosen you because you were so good, so right, so everything? Would you be tempted to place yourself on a pedestal? Consider that for a moment. Be honest with yourself.

I think most of us would. Pride is ubiquitous. It is the seed from which all sin originates, that which led to the fall of Lucifer (Satan) and the fall of man. If being told that I was to have a most important part in the answer to all of Man's problems, would I be able to resist the call of pride? Man, I hope so, but honestly, I doubt it.

Now, back to Mary.

How did she respond? The answer is found in Luke 1:46-55. Read that passage, and note how Mary refers to herself. Do you see it? In verse 48 . . . humble. Not only humble, but a humble servant. That's it. That's all she says about herself. Everything else she says is about God. No reference to herself as being deserving, or important, or really anything. She is just a humble servant of God.

That's humility. That's getting ready for Christmas.

Christmas isn't about us. Christmas is about God. It's about Him sending His Son as our Savior for His glory, not ours. We're not so good that we deserved Jesus. We're so bad that we required Jesus. Christmas should not be a celebration of ourselves, our children, our families, or anything else but rather a celebration of God. Mary got that. Do we?

Think about that as you get ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Mary Was Willing

Last week, we talked about what Joseph had to do to prepare himself for that first Christmas, the birth of Christ. This week, I want to talk about Mary.

Mary was a young girl, pledged to be married to Joseph. Not yet married, she was still a virgin. We could say that her preparation started there and be correct. Were she not a virgin, she could not have been the mother of Jesus.

Where I want to pick up Mary's story, however, is in Luke 1:26, when Gabriel appears to her with the incredible announcement that she is to give birth to a son, the Son of the Most High. Mary, of course, questioned how this could come to be, as she was, as we mentioned, a virgin. Gabriel explains that the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you (Luke 1:35).

Now, Mary was young, but she wasn't dumb. She knew what it meant to be a virgin, and she knew what it meant to be pregnant, and how the two were related. She also knew what it meant to be pregnant before being married. At best, she risked being ostracized. At worst, stoned to death. Joseph, nor any other respectable man, would want her as his wife.

And who would believe some story about an angel appearing to her, and that the Most High had come upon her and overshadowed her? God had been silent for a long time, and even when He had been speaking and interacting with His People before His silence, He had never done anything like this. Very few, if any would believe her.

Mary, then, was faced with a decision. Now, I don't know if she could have refused God's will in this matter or not, but she certainly could have argued. She could have presented her case and her concerns. She could have begged for mercy, asked God to wait until she was married, to allow her to remain a respectable woman.

She didn't.

Mary's response, in Luke 1:38, sums up her response. "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said."

I am the Lord's servant. God knows more than I do. I am willing. That's what Mary said there. I am willing. To be used as God wants me to be used. To do what God wants me to do. To risk losing what I have, or might have in the future, to be obedient to God's will.

That took courage. That took guts. That took faith.

Being willing to be used of, by, and for God isn't an easy thing. He often calls us to step outside our comfort zone, to do things which seem, and are to us alone, impossible. He asks us to take risks, and sometimes to make sacrifices. God never said that doing His will would be easy. What God says is that He knows best, and our efforts and sacrifices will never go to waste or unnoticed (by Him).

As you are preparing for Christmas, I urge you to consider your willingness to be God's servant. Not just when it's easy and comfortable, but when it's hard and uncomfortable. I urge you to be like Mary, to offer yourself as His servant, and to do whatever He asks.

Getting Ready For Christmas--Joseph Loved

In our first two blogs of this series, we explored how to prepare for that first Christmas, Joseph had to have faith, and then had to act on that faith by being obedient. Those are important and even essential elements for us as well in this season of Advent. They are not, however, what I think are most important. What I think is most important is something the Bible does not say directly, but certainly implies.

Joseph loved.

Joseph loved Mary. When he found out she was pregnant before they had been together, he did not want to disgrace her. Why? Because he loved her. When the angel told him in a dream to trust Mary and take her as his wife, he believed. Why? Certainly because he was a God-fearing man, but also, I believe, because of love.

Because he loved, Joseph took Mary with him as he went to register in Bethlehem. He had to register, not her. She, however, was due any day, and Joseph wanted to be part of that experience with the woman he loved. He endured the gossip, the outrage, the snickers and the ridicule because he loved.

Joseph loved Jesus. He desperately sought a place for the child to be born, and did the best he could to provide shelter. When Jesus was born, Joseph was there. When it came time for the child to be dedicated in the temple, Joseph went, claiming Him as his own. When righteous Simeon praised God as he recognized Jesus as the Messiah, Joseph marveled.

When told that his son was threatened, Joseph left the life he knew and fled to Egypt. When told it was safe to return, he avoided further danger and forsook the land of his fathers to live in Galilee. When Jesus went missing at 12 years old in Jerusalem, Joseph ran back to find Him.

Joseph loved, and he showed his love by what he did.

As we prepare for Christmas, we also must love. We must love one another, and we must love Jesus Christ our Lord. In I Corinthians 13:13, Paul says, "And now these three remain: Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

I John 4:16 says, "God is love." John was not led to write, "God is faith," or "God is hope," but rather, "God is love." In heaven, I don't believe we will need faith--God will be visible and with us always. Nor do I believe we will need hope, for we will have received our inheritance. What will always remain, though, is love.

If we observe Christmas as a celebration of Christ, and believe that Christ is God, then we must embrace that Christmas is about love. Christmas is about John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Christ was born for this reason: God so loved the world.

The origin of Christmas is love. Let us not fail to remember that as we get ready for Christmas this year.

Getting Ready For Christmas--Joseph, Part Two

In part one of this series on Joseph, I said the first thing Joseph had to do to prepare for Christmas, the arrival of Christ, was to accept the fact of the miracle of the child Mary carried. He had to accept the illogical and seemingly impossible reality that this child they were to name Jesus was truly the Son of God.

Now what?

Put yourself in Joseph's sandals. You've accepted that your wife to be is pregnant, and yet a virgin, based on her word and the word of an angel in a dream. That is a great testimony of faith. But now you have to face the world, and let's be real, who else is going to believe a story like that?

Joseph's next step in getting ready for Christmas is to be obedient to what he believes. You see, it's one thing to say you believe something, it's something else all together to act like it. Especially when times get tough, and you can bet that times got tough for Joseph.

People in his day weren't stupid. They knew how long a baby took to come along, and even if Joseph moved the wedding up, which no doubt caused some raised eyebrows, the timing still wasn't going to work out. They lived in a small community where everybody knew everything. They knew something was up, and I doubt they graciously accepted a story about the Holy Spirit and an angel. Nothing like that had ever happened, and it was just too convenient. People are people, and they will assume the worst, and act accordingly.

Joseph had a couple of options. He could have had Mary stoned, or sent her away, but he didn't. He could have moved away and made a living somewhere else, but he didn't. He could have done a lot of things, but what he decided to do was the right thing. He was obedient to what he believed, even if it was hard.

That meant obeying a decree of the Romans to go register in his ancestral home, Bethlehem. God's word says it is right and good to obey man's laws, even if you don't agree with them. I'm sure Joseph didn't want to take his very pregnant wife on a multi-day journey. I'm sure that wasn't the easiest choice he could have made, but it was the right one, and Joseph was a righteous man.

Since everyone had to make a similar journey, you can be the rumor train went ahead of and right along with Joseph and Mary. You know how it works--if there's a rumor about you, no matter where you go, it's going to beat you there. He was headed to his ancestral home, where his relatives lived. You can bet they knew he was coming, and his "predicament."

Besides the pressure of caring for his due-any-day wife, the gossip, the whispers behind the back, Joseph had the pressure of watching over the yet to be born Son of God. Since he believed, he accepted the responsibility. I doubt he fully understand the ramifications of being the stand-in dad for the Messiah, but I bet he understood he was a part of something much bigger than his simple life as a carpenter. That's a lot of pressure for a simple man. One like you and me.

What matters, though, is that he did it. When times got tough, Joseph did what he was supposed to do. He didn't take the easy path or the easy way out. He clung to his faith, squared his shoulders, gritted his teeth, and faced life. Joseph made the hard choice of being obedient, and doing the right thing. Come what may, Joseph decided to act on his faith.

We associate Christmas with faith, hope, joy, and love. But obedience? Perseverance? Those two are just as much a part of getting ready for Christmas as the former. Sometimes it's little things, like saying "Merry Christmas" instead of happy holidays, or speaking up when a school district changes the Christmas program to the Winter program. Making Christmas about Christ and not about presents. It's not easy when no one else is doing it, but that's not what matters. What matters is what is right.

What do you believe? If you believe Christmas is about Christ, then part of getting ready for Christmas is acting like it.

Getting Ready For Christmas--Joseph, Part One

Getting ready for Christmas is a big deal. For some, it takes weeks, or even months, to complete the decorating, the shopping, the writing of Christmas cards, practicing for plays and choirs, arranging to visit or be visited by family, planning and preparing meals . . . The list goes on and on. Big things take a lot of work, and for many, few things are bigger than Christmas.

For the next three weeks, I am going to be getting ready for Christmas. Not just the busyness of presents and meals and family, but truly preparing to celebrate the most important birth in the history of everything. As part of doing so, I want to take a look at that first Christmas through the eyes of Joseph and Mary. I think, once I understand a little better how they prepared for that most important day, it will hep me to truly get ready for Christmas. I hope you will join me.

Our journey begins with Joseph. Maybe--probably--you know his story. He was betrothed (engaged) to Mary. A Jewish betrothal was different than a modern engagement. It was a legal and binding agreement. They were, you could say, half married. They were committed to one another, but not yet united as husband and wife, and therefore could not live together or engage in marital intimacy.

You can imagine his reaction, then, when he found out Mary was pregnant. I imagine Joseph responded at first as any man would--hurt, angry, jealous, shamed . . . you get the picture. According to Jewish custom and law, he had every right to have Mary taken before the officials and, were she truly found to be pregnant, to have her stoned to death, and that might have crossed his mind. At first.

Joseph, however, is identified in Matthew 1:19 as a righteous man, one who did not want to expose the love of his life, even if she had been unfaithful to him, to public disgrace. His plan, then, once the white hot emotions calmed somewhat, was to quietly divorce Mary. This would possibly allow her to have a future. He still loved her, and while it was his right to seek revenge under law and custom, his righteousness prevailed over his anger.

As he was still considering his options, no doubt tossing and turning, finding sleep hard to come by, he had a dream. An angel appeared to him and said, "Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."

Now, I don't know what kind of dream this was, but it must have been a powerful one, because it changed Joseph's mind. Instead of having her stoned, instead of quietly divorcing her, Joseph believed what she no doubt told him, and what an angel in a dream repeated to him: The child in Mary's womb was no ordinary child.

This, then, was what Joseph had to accept to get ready for that first Christmas: The child to be was no ordinary child. Joseph had to accept, believe, and embrace the illogical and seemingly impossible reality that his wife to be was truly a virgin, and yet pregnant. He had to accept a miracle.

For us to truly be ready for Christmas, we must do the same. We celebrate a child in a manger, but we must, if we are to really embrace Christmas for what it is, accept the same miracle as Joseph. We must wrap our minds around, and fully believe, that this child was of, and from, God. More than that, that He was, and is, the Son of God, and in fact God Himself.

If that's not what Christmas is about, then Christmas is about nothing. It's just another reason to get a day off work, put up some pretty decorations, and get together with family and friends. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it's not special. It's not unique. It's not enough.

To truly be ready to celebrate Christmas, we have to start with the miracle of Christ's birth. He is the Son of God, come to earth by supernatural means, in the most humble of ways. For Christmas to have any meaning, we must, as did Joseph, accept the illogical and seemingly impossible. If we don't, or won't, start there, then nothing else about December 25 really matters.