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December is a great time of year. People are different during December, it is a time
when though the shops become mad houses, the people seem more giving and
open. The weather may become a problem on either side of the Equator but people
just seem ³nicer´ if that is the word .
As a follower of Jesus I kind of wonder just how influential He is at this time of the
year. I do not ask this cynically, it is a serious thought. I know that we celebrate His
birthday on the 25 th. Many people choose to do Xmas instead of the traditional
Christmas but that is incidental: just somethin g to stir up the Christians. Most people
who do this use it as a shortcut. They do this without realizing the X in Roman times,
apart from being the number Ten, was also one of the secret symbols that were used
to identify other believers.
I do believe that there are more people for Christmas than against it, that the
movement to take Christ out of Christmas is lead by a minority of nonbelievers.
Those of the Political Correctness brigade who have tried to popularize the Holiday
Season concept would claim to be being universalist in their sentiment. With the
season lasting from Thanksgiving, including the Hebrew Hanukkah, Christmas and
going through New Years.
The thing that stands out to me is that when you go into almost any shop at this time
of year you are greeted with Christmas carols, even if some are not always about
Christ. Most people accept this ³Muzak´ to place it into an elevator category. But
more important to me is the numbers of people w ho turn out to event like Carols by
Candle Light.
So the question becomes whom do we hold responsible for the changes that seem
to come over people during this time and I can only see one Headliner with the
presence to achieve this. The baby Jesus, the Son of God, foretold throughout the
ages by the prophets who spoke for His Father, and His Father who solved the
separation between men and Himself by providing us a Saviour who is Christ with
us.
Our God is to be praised for the way that He created a unique period for His entry
into the affairs of man, a time of peace from war and a time when few knew anything
special had happened. But today we know even those outside the Community of
Faith know it, or at least feel it.
Christmas is no spur of the moment thing the prophet s foretold about the king born in
a manger, about His life and of His death. The Angels who spoke to Mary and
Joseph also testified to the planning that went into the event, the child was to be
called ³Immanuel´ Hebrew for the Greek ³Christ´ which translates ³God with us´ and
He was to be named Jesus in Hebrew that means ³Saviour´. The baby lying in an
animal trough had already been named ³God with us Saviour.´
The miracle of Christmas is that this ³non -event´ in terms of human history over two
thousand years age still draws a crowd. God stag ed it so that even the character of
the event as the Angels sang praises about it still transcend to this day. Easter is
dramatic, the complete antithesis of Christmas. If anything was going to last in the
mind of man it should be Easter, and yet Christ¶s birth in ignominy still stirs the heart
of mankind; even if some do not know why.