This week the whole world has been celebrating Christmas, which is the most celebrated season of the year in the world, but I wonder how many might have missed a real Christmas this year! Sometimes we can be going through all the motions of celebrating Christmas, and even have a fun Christmas party with our loved ones, exchanging gifts and season cards, and wishing each other “Merry Christmas”, and yet still miss the true spirit of Christmas! How?
Well, to start with, during the days preceding the celebration, we might have gotten so busy running around the shops, looking for Christmas lights and decorations, greeting cards to send to our friends and relatives, gifts to wrap and put under the tree for our loves ones, and everything else that we hope made us look good with our guests at the Christmas party, that we ended up not having taken the time to reflect on what Christmas is all about.
A lot of people get so busy, frantically trying to conform to all that they think “they are expected to do at Christmas”, that they forget the real reason and purpose it is being celebrated in the first place! That’s something that I find myself repeating almost every year during the Christmas season, but I can’t help it, because it’s so sad for me to see lots of people being so “busy” that they think they have “no room” or time for what’s really most important in life!
That’s what those running the inn in Bethlehem told Joseph during the first Christmas, when he knocked at their door and asked for a room so that his wife Mary could deliver her Child there. They told him that “there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7)! Think about it, they were so “busy” that they missed the blessing of having baby Jesus being born there!
Were you so busy that you had “no room” or time to think about Jesus this Christmas?
If we think that we have “no time” to reflect on “the meaning of Christmas”, we might miss the true purpose of celebrating it and it would almost be better not to celebrate it at all, than to forget what it’s all about! Christmas is meant to celebrate the birth of Someone important, and that’s not Santa Claus! We are supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ! Did you take time to think about “what Christmas gift will you give Him”?
We can also miss Christmas if we have become so familiar with “the story of Christmas” that it doesn’t really touch us anymore! This might sound odd, but it’s often the “religious people” that forget to visit the stable in Bethlehem, because they are so familiar with the story that they have become sort of “indifferent” to it. For them, it’s the same “old story”. How sad!
It has always puzzled me that the only ones to bring gifts to Jesus, two thousand years ago, were “wise men from the east”! They were not the religious leaders of Jerusalem, who knew very well that it was “in Bethlehem of Judea that the Messiah would be born”, and yet, when the wise men told them that “the King of the Jews had been born”, they did not go there to find Him! These wise men did not even know the Scriptures, yet they followed a star all the way “from the east” and, “when they saw the young child with Mary his mother, they fell down and worshipped Him”! Then, “they opened their treasures and presented to Him gifts; gold (for a king), frankincense (for a God), and myrrh” (for a Savior)” (Matthew 2:1-12)!
Why didn’t the religious leaders come to worship Jesus? After all, Bethlehem was only a few miles from Jerusalem and they could have easily walked there! Well, they might have been “too busy” with religious activities, but I have a feeling that, like many “believers” today, they might have been so familiar with those Scriptures that they had become indifferent to it.
Are you so familiar with the story of Christmas that it doesn’t touch you any longer?
Don’t allow your Christmas activities (including religious ones!), or your familiarity with the story, distract you from the true purpose of Christmas, but come to the manger and worship Jesus with us! Worship means coming silently into His presence to contemplate the light that emanates from His face, as we observe His loving gaze and hear His sweet voice that says: “I was made flesh and lived among you, and you can behold My glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”(John 1:14).
Don’t miss Christmas this year! Come to the manger! We will be there with our gifts, together with the wise men and the pastors who are gathered there during Christmas!
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We wish you all a
Meaningful Merry Christmas
and a
Blessed Happy New Year!
Renato e Patrizia
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