Why
you're Here
If
you've come to this page, we assume that, like the Wise Men of old,
you want to investigate the true meaning of Christmas.
To
help you do this, the page will be divided into the following;
1.
What is Christmas?
2.
The Negatives of Christmas
3.
The True Meaning of Christmas
4.
The Possibilities of Christmas
If
you want to see further resources to help you think about Christmas
click here
If
you want to see exactly what the Bible says about the
Christmas events, click here
1.
What is Christmas?
In
the words of a dictionary, Christmas is:
"the
annual festival observed by Christians on 25th December, commemorating
the birth of Christ "
In
a nutshell that's it! It's Christians remembering and celebrating,
on the 25th of December every year, the birth of Jesus Christ.
2.
The Negatives of what Christmas has become
So
why is everybody else jumping up and down?
The
reality today, in the West, is that politicians, economists, producers
and retailers use Christmas to stimulate the economy.
The
result is that with advertising and shop displays, very large numbers
of us, who owe no genuine allegiance to Jesus Christ, feel pressurised
to buy more food and drink and presents than are good for us. In the
weeks leading up to Christmas considerable numbers of people feel under
great pressure. Christmas has become a burden! Over Christmas
we eat and drink more than is healthy, and after Christmas many of us
have massive debts.
Pause
up for a moment and just take in those negatives about this so-called
season of joy. Come on, dare to be honest.
The
Negatives of Christmas
This
is not being a killjoy, this is just facing the truth about what is
now happening every year.
a)
Before Christmas
- weeks,
if not months, before Christmas day, many of us start compiling lists
of presents that we feel we 'ought' to give.
- if
we are parents, we may be suffering from the fairly modern phenomena
of "pester-power", the power of children nagging and wearing
down their parents to buy particular presents as a result of TV advertising.
- if
we are not very well off we start worrying where the money is going
to come from - some of us will try to work longer hours to pay for
the 'celebration'.
- if
we are single and alone we may dread the awful day coming when 'everyone'
else is celebrating and we're all alone.
- if
we're a teacher, we know we've got weeks of hectic preparation for
the school nativity play, the carol service, or whatever other production
is going to be put on.
-
if we're an employer we often feel we've got to provide an 'office
party' to convince the staff how much we appreciate them.
- if
we're an employee then many of us dread the ordeal of being required
to be jolly with people who, for the rest of the year, we just about
tolerate.
- if
we're police, doctors, nurses or ambulance workers, we know that our
working lives are going to get very busy and often very unpleasant.
b)
Christmas Day
- this
is the day that we have been made to feel has GOT to be special, and
for many of us, the only way we know of doing that is by preparing
and eating large amounts of food, and drinking large amounts of alcohol
- preferably in the company of other people who also feel they have
to make it special.
- the
afternoon varies according to age - asleep in front of the TV, or
playing with the toys, or even for some, walking off the weight of
too much Christmas dinner.
- by
the evening we're straining to get second wind - either enough stamina
to keep playing the games that may not see another outing until next
Christmas, or to stay awake to see the Christmas TV programme replays,
or to have "a party".
c)
After the Event
- once
Christmas has gone there is frequently a sense of anticlimax after
all the weeks of preparation, or a time of passing the days until
the demands of work claim us back to normality again.
-
when the credit card bill comes in you realise that the time
of accounting has come, and we try to justify it by the "great
time" we had.
Is
it that Bad?
Some
reading the above descriptions may deride them as the ramblings of a
religious killjoy. If you do, that may either be a defensive reaction
or you don't understand where this might lead.
For
many of us, the truth is that our daily lives are so shallow or empty
of real meaning, that the temporary boost of false happiness is better
than what we had before.
Is
this an unjust condemnation? Not if the comments of so many people
in recent years, and so many newspaper articles, are to be believed.
For
many of us, if we had the courage, we'd like to ban Christmas from the
calendar. For many, it's not that the things above are an overstatement,
but are in fact an understatement of the anguish so many go through,
and the worry they are left with afterwards.
3.
The Real Meaning of Christmas 
At
the top of the page we defined Christmas as a time of remembrance and
celebration by Christians of the birth of Jesus Christ.
Because
we are no longer a "Christian country" (if we ever were one),
many of us have little knowledge of exactly what happened some two thousand
years ago, and the meaning of Christmas is conveyed through sentimental
films, or through the annual school nativity play, which leaves us with
an unreal, folksy feel.
For
many, therefore, their knowledge of Christmas is probably on a par with
their knowledge of the origins and meaning of Morris Dancing!
If that is you, then this page is for you.
Put
Christ back into Christmas!
That
is a pretty good campaign slogan! At the heart of Christmas
is Christ - Jesus Christ, the historical figure who lived and died on
this planet some two thousand years ago.
Two
thousand years! That sounds a long time? Not really, many other
aspects of our lives have their origins centuries and centuries ago.
The historical records show that Jesus Christ was an historical figure
who lived two thousand years ago. (You can see more about this
on other pages of the Site.)
But
that most reliable of documents, the Bible, (and see elsewhere on the
Site to see why we CAN say that) tells us not only about the three years
of his amazing ministry in the land we now call Israel, not only about
his death and resurrection, but also about the amazing events surrounding
his birth.
A
Divine Starting Point
You
are going to struggle with what follows if you can't grasp one staggering
truth that the Bible declares loud and clear: this baby was God expressing
Himself in human form!
Now
even to cope with that description we have to pause and think. Whatever
your view of God might be,
the Bible (and philosophers,
for that matter) agree on one thing: if there is a God He has to be
THE Supreme Being, all-mighty, all-powerful, all-knowing, who
exists everywhere but who is yet distinct
from matter, who is spirit.
Now
the Bible declares that this Almighty God came to earth in human form.
If that is so, then all that follows is not only understandable,
but to be expected. If Almighty God comes onto the earth,
then we would expect unusual things to be happening.
Where
this leaves you.
Now
if you start off from a presupposition that there is no God and therefore
the 'supernatural' cannot happen, then understandably you will have
switched off - indeed why are you still reading???
But
if you concede there could be a God, then the above should not be too
surprising, at least in the possibility of it being able to to happen.
If
God IS all-powerful etc. then He is quite able to do all these things.
What is so amazing is that He should WANT to do them. That is
the question with which Seekers of truth now find themselves.
So
why?
Why
should God act in this way? The answer is staggering in its simplicity:
simply because He can, and it's the most natural thing for Him to do!
If
in heaven there are angelic messengers, then the obvious thing is to
use them to convey information. If God has the power to enable women
to conceive, then why shouldn't He use it to bless them? If God
can communicate with us, why shouldn't He do it to bring guidance and
help? 
But
under girding all this is the staggering truth that God wants to communicate
with His creation and has done so in the most natural of ways.
It's been said that if you wanted to communicate with ants, the best
way would be to become an ant.
So
here is the most staggering of truths, that God stepped down into the
human arena, in human form, to communicate with us. That is why Christmas
is so important, it reminds us of the bridge that God created from heaven
to earth - His 'Son', Jesus Christ, who the apostle Paul was later to
describe as the "image of the invisible God" (Col
1:15).
4.
The Possibilities of Christmas
In
our considerations above we observed the possibilities that God could
Sunday Services
Back to Season Pages (Contents)