Skip to main content

What's Christmas Really All About?

Most of the time, when I see a friend or greet someone, the typical greeting is usually “Hi, how are you?” To which the typical response is “Fine,” or “I am doing well.” But I noticed recently that this time of year our typical greeting changes. Abut a week ago I noticed this typical greeting change to “Hi! So, are you ready for Christmas?” To which the typical response is, usually a chuckle and then a list of things the person still needs to get done is given. You know that list, oh I still have shopping to do, baking to get done, dinner to plan, wrapping to do, decorating to finish… Preparing for Christmas is a lot of work, but let’s face it; it’s worth it, isn’t it? I mean Christmas is so much fun. But at the same time, I have to wonder, we have created all this stuff we must do to get ready for Christmas, but lately it has left a nagging question on my mind. To quote one of the great thinkers of all times, my question is “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? (Play video)

For millennia, the people had been asking the question, what is Christmas all about, and then in 1965, I remember it well, Charlie Brown had the audacity to shout it out loud. And in response, Linus offers him this reading from Luke and then walks over and says, "...That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

Christmas is about God coming to live with us. Christmas is about God coming as a king to a broken world, but here is where it get really interesting, God didn’t come to the kings, to the elite, to the socially powerful. No God came in Bethlehem, a small backwater town. God came and once he arrived, God wanted those who needed him the most to know he was here and so God went to the shepherds; those who were so unimportant in this world that they weren’t even to be included in the census. This is what Christmas is all about!

Now don’t get me wrong things like gifts are important on Christmas. Heck, in our house opening presents is a major, almost all-day event. Now it takes so long because for us, not necessarily because there are so many gifts, but because we only open one gift at a time and then usually there is a story that the giver of the gift has to share as to why they got that gift for the person. Some times those stories are funny, or silly and other times they are very serious and heart-felt, but there is always a story.

And that brings me back to the remembering what Christmas is really all about. It is about how God came into this world to be with us and he did that by giving the world a gift in the form of a baby, Jesus. But God didn’t just give us this gift silently. No, on that first Christmas Eve, as God gave God’s gift to the world, God took the time to tell a story to those she gave this gift. God went to the shepherds in the field and said, “I have given a gift to you this night, and let me tell why I have given you this heart-felt living gift. First, God said, I know you often live in fear, but “I don’t want you to be afraid anymore, because I have some really good news for you, tonight in a in a manger in Bethlehem, I have given you my son; I have given you myself; I have given you the Messiah.” Christmas is about Jesus and how we no longer need to live in fear. Oh, I know, many in this world want us to be afraid and they want to convince us that without them, or without their products our their policies, or whatever it is they want us to buy or believe in, that the world is falling apart. But tonight, on Christmas we hear the words of our Lord, “Do not be afraid!” Yes, the world is messed up, that’s not new news. It has been messed up since the fall of humanity in the Garden. But tonight we are reminded that God has come to live among us and in doing, we no longer need to fear, for God is here. Tonight, we are reminded that in the gift of the infant Jesus, God declares a new standard for power, a word of hope, “good news” for all who are fragile, all who are weak, all who are overlooked, all who are despised, all who are abandoned, all who are homeless, all who are hovering between life and death, all who live.

The gifts, the baking, the decorations, the Christmas trees, are all fun and important in helping us to celebrate, but tonight, as we gather here, my prayer is that each of us takes just one moment to remember what Christmas is really all about. Christmas is about a God who loves us so much that she chose to come into this world as a baby and live among us so that we would live in fear no longer, for in Jesus, our salvation is promised. Now that is good news!

So, my answer to that greeting of, “So, are you ready for Christmas?,” is yes, I have been ready all my life. I am ready to fear no more. I am ready to live with my savior. Merry Christmas to each of you! Amen.

Tags: Sermons