Christmas is celebrating highest of human values

CHRISTMAS is one of the most popular of all our holidays and people from all persuasions look forward to this time of the year.

The general question that people, religious or not, often ask: “Isn’t Christmas the one time each year when the highest of human values is celebrated?”

We sing of peace on Earth and goodwill towards men. We single out and extol the spirit of peace, brotherhood, charity and kindness.

We place everything else on hold, while we gather with our families to give one another gifts and commemorate the holiday. When all is said and done, don’t these things capture the essence of Christmas?

Not quite. Of course, they are good and wholesome virtues. However, they are mere vestiges of the real meaning of Christmas.

Christmas today has been largely reduced to festivities that have no bearing on the true meaning.

Small businesses, corporate companies, chain stores and supermarkets have jumped on to the bandwagon to promote their products and up their sales as they make Christmas about cakes, decorations, turkey, Santa Claus and his reindeers, etc…

Christmas over the years has been secularised and has given way to crass consumerism.

What is of greater concern is that Christmas has become the ultimate holiday for committed hedonists.

Drunken parties, self indulgence, madcap spending and obscene gluttony characterise much of the world as they celebrate Christmas.

This trend is not hard to document – visit your local mall a week before Christmas, listen to the conversations, watch the advertisements – if you are someone who has not heard of Christ or Christmas, what message would you retain from what you see and hear?

So then, what is the true meaning of Christmas?

Christmas is really about Jesus, the promised Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us – who came to save his people from their sins.

How did sin enter the world that resulted in such rebellion and wickedness towards God?

Simple – it is through the disobedience of the first man, Adam. The first people God created were Adam and then Eve, who were in a perfect relationship with God and each other.

They were given the task to manage all that God had created and to live in perfect obedience to his command.

God had given man a free will to obey his word or disobey his command. The command was they are free to eat of all the trees that God had created, but there were two trees they were forbidden to eat from, namely the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. They were told by God that the day they ate from it, they will die.

They chose to disobey God and to listen to the voice of Satan. This is the beginning of all moral corruption, decay and ultimately physical death and eternal separation from God.

Through one man’s disobedience, sin entered the world and death through sin. Death has passed to all men because all have sinned. The human race has inherited the sin of Adam and Eve. Therefore, we all fall under the judgment of God.

The good news though, is that God made a promise to Adam and Eve, right at the beginning of creation.

The promise is this: “The seed of the woman will crush the head of Satan to rescue the whole of mankind. The one message that the Bible proclaims is that the seed of the woman finds its fulfilment in Jesus.

“Jesus will be born supernaturally through the Holy Spirit. God the Spirit touches a virgin by the name of Mary. God told Mary: “The Holy One to be born of your womb will be called the Son of God… You are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save his people from their sins.”

That is the message and good news of Christmas. Man is a sinner and cannot save himself. Jesus is the only person who is able to save mankind from their sin and from an eternity without God.

All who place their trust in the message of the good news of Christmas will be saved. The good news is all about Jesus. His name means Saviour!

That is the heart and soul of the essence of the Christmas message. The baby in the manger is God. That is why Christians all over the world celebrate Christmas.

This is where we celebrate joy and gladness as opposed to the manufactured sentiment and wild revelry that characterise the way the world observes Christmas.

My prayer is that the richness of Christ in who he is and what he has come to do will be appreciated and accepted by all who believe. May this be the most wonderful Christmas you have ever celebrated!.

Sola Deo Gloria