Each year when Thanksgiving is over and done with, a
phenomenon takes place in our culture: It seems before November is even ended
all eyes are riveted on the calendar.
Nervous shoppers anxiously watch the days tick rapidly by as the
Christmas season approaches. Pumpkins
are scarcely dead on the vines and the Thanksgiving turkey barely finished off
before holly branches are drug out of storage to decorate stores, artificial
trees dusted off for another year, and Christmas lists are already in the
well-developed stage. And more and more grumpy wanna-be Scrooges,
complain about the commercialism of Christmas and the high cost of the Yuletide
season, so much so that it seems they would be happier if it didn’t even exist
at all.
Why do we celebrate Christmas after
all? Is it just to watch our children or
grandchildren squeal over their piles of newly acquired toys, only to find them
tossed carelessly under a chair a day later, never to be played with
again? We glibly parrot the little
phrase, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” but often we give very little
thought to the real reason God sent Jesus into the world as a baby two thousand
years ago.
A while back I ran across this story
that gives a dramatic illustration of why Jesus had to come, and demonstrates
in a graphic way just how much he truly loves us.
There was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he
didn't hesitate in letting others know how he felt about religion and religious
holidays, like Christmas. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their
children, despite his disparaging comments, to also have faith in God and
Jesus. One snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a
Christmas Eve service in the farming community in which they lived. She asked
him to come, but he refused. "That story is nonsense!" he said.
"Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That's
ridiculous!" So she and the children left, and he stayed home.
A while
later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw
was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening,
but then he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. Then he heard
another thump. He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet. When the
snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on
his window.
In
the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been
flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn't
go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They
just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and
aimlessly. It seemed a couple of them
had flown into his window. The man felt
sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place
for them to stay, he thought. It's warm and safe; surely they could spend the
night and wait out the storm. So he walked over to the barn and opened
the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn
and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't
seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean to them.
The man tried to get their attention, but that just
seemed to scare them and they moved further away. He went into the house and
came out with some bread, broke it up, and made a breadcrumbs trail leading to
the barn. They still didn't catch on. Now he was getting frustrated. He got
behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more
scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did
could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.
"Why
won't they follow me?" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the only
place where they can survive the storm?" He thought for a moment and
realized that they just wouldn't follow a human. "If only I were a goose,
then I could save them," he said out loud.
Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his
own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of
wild geese. He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight
into the barn, and one by one the other geese followed
it to safety. He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few
minutes earlier replayed in his mind:
"If only I were a goose, then I could save
them!" Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier.
"Why would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!" Suddenly it
all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese; we were
blind, lost, and perishing, but God sent us His Son who become like us so He
could show us the way and save us. Then he realized the true meaning of
Christmas.
As
the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet as he pondered
this wonderful thought. Suddenly he understood what Christmas was all about and
why Christ had come. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished like the passing
storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer:
"Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the
storm!"
Just like the geese in the story, we were all once in
a similar condition. Paul addressed this
condition in Ephesians 2:12 & 13 when he said, “…at that time ye were
without Christ…strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world: But now in
Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of
Christ. (Amplified Bible)
Thankfully,
God did not leave us in that condition without hope, but, “God so greatly
loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten
(unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him
shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting)
life.
For God did not send
the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass
sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made
safe and sound through Him.”
John 3:16 & 17 (Amplified Bible)
So Christmas is not just about tinsel,
crowded shopping malls, pudgy Santa Clauses, and weary shoppers; it is about
God becoming flesh so he could show us how to move out of a life of futility
and desperation into one of abundance and provision – in other words so we
could have salvation.
“But to as many as did receive and
welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the
children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and
rely on) His name.
Who owe their birth neither to bloods
nor to the will of the flesh [that of physical impulse] nor to the will of man
[that of a natural father], but to God. [They are born of God!]
And the Word (Christ) became flesh (human, incarnate)
and tabernacled (fixed His tent of flesh, lived
awhile) among us; and we [actually] saw His glory (His honor, His majesty),
such glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace
(favor, loving-kindness) and truth.
For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all
received [all had a share and we were all supplied with] one grace after
another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon
favor and gift [heaped] upon gift.” John 1:12-14 & 16 (Amplified Bible)
What a Christmas present God has offered to us! Grace, spiritual blessing, favor, and gifts
heaped upon gifts, all these are made available through the incarnation of
Jesus. So that’s why Christmas is a reason to celebrate, not a time to complain!
So this Christmas season make it a time of rejoicing; it is a season to be
jolly because Jesus willingly came to earth.
And because he chose to come, he made a pathway for us that leads to a safe haven - a shelter from the storm!