Rediscover the Bible for Life
“Getting Ready for Christmas”
by Dennis Lee
Thanksgiving is over, and already the push is on. Christmas is right around the corner and already we’ve endured Black Friday, one of the holiday’s best days to get a deal on your Christmas giving, that is, until Black Monday hits, which is the Internet’s version.
All this got me thinking about how our society gets ready for the Christmas holiday.
Weekends will be filled with anxious holiday shoppers trying to get everything on their Christmas list. They’ll go from store to store, from one Internet site after another all to find that special gift and the best price possible, and they’re not afraid of a little knock down drag out fight to do it.
So much for a season of comfort and joy!
And let’s not forget the decorations. Many do it up big time. They put up their Christmas lights, Santa and his reindeer on the roof, snowmen on their front lawns, and substitute Jingle Bells for their front door chime.
And then there is the inside of the house as we put up our Christmas trees, wreaths, and hang our Christmas Socking’s with care, but then fireplaces are rare in Mesquite. With bows, balls, and bulbs we decorate just about every inch of our homes.
But before we can decorate we have to do a through cleaning so that we can make room and put up all these wonderful decorations.
And so with a great deal of time and money we ready ourselves for Christmas.
But what about the baby Jesus in the manger part of Christmas?
If it were up to the world they would outlaw the baby, they’d outlaw Jesus. They take Him and the manger scene down in the public square. They forbid any mention of Him. What they want is to take the day where we celebrate the birth of Jesus and make it no longer a holy day but a holiday and celebrate it as a cultic celebration known as “Winter Solstice.”
They have taken the name of Jesus or Christ completely out of the holiday and replaced it with the letter “X,” and call it “X-Mas.” They take the phrase “Merry Christmas,” and replace it with the salutation, “Happy Holiday.”
What has happened to Christmas?
What has happened is that we got so caught up with the physical that we neglected the spiritual side of what Christmas is all about. No matter what our society tries to do and turn Christmas into, Christmas always was and will be spiritual.
Christmas is about man’s relationship to God through the birth of Jesus Christ, who is both Savior and Lord, who came to reconcile us to Father God.
So the question becomes, “How do you prepare for the spiritual celebration that should be present in all Christians lives?” Or as the title of our message indicates, “Getting Ready For Christmas.”
This Sunday at 10 a.m. I’d like to share with you four ways that I believe we need to do to ready ourselves for Christmas, and they come from those who were there. What did they do, and what did they tell us to do to get ready?
