Christmas Time is Here!

Christmastime is Here!
Well, here we are…All of the waiting and all of the preparation have lead us up to this! We are on the verge of the day where we celebrate the birth of Jesus! It hardly seems like it’s really that time…Even with the decorations up and the cold wind, it just doesn’t feel like Christmas to me…Or at least it didn’t until I watched Charlie Brown’s Christmas a few nights ago.
How many are familiar with Charlie Brown’s Christmas? I forgot just how much I love that movie! There are many movies out that portray the birth of Jesus, but I have to admit that I think that Charlie Brown’s Christmas portrays the message of Christmas better than most movies that I’ve seen! Now, this movie doesn’t depict Jesus’ birth like some other Christmas movies do, but they are preparing for their Christmas play which seems to have some of the characters that we know with the Nativity scene…Shepherds, Animals, and even a Christmas Queen! Charlie Brown just isn’t feeling everything though…He’s honored to be asked to be the director of the Christmas play, but is still struggling with what Christmas really is...
He meets Snoopy decorating his house for the “reason for the season”…MONEY, MONEY, MONEY! And Charlie Brown just doesn’t think that’s the reason for the season…Then he meets with his little sister, Sally and helps her with her letter to Santa…As she asks for her gifts and includes lots of money, Charlie Brown gets fed up again and wonders still what is the reason for the season…What is Christmas really about?? Just when Charlie Brown thinks that he has it figured out, he’s chosen to be the one to get the Christmas Tree for the pageant…He picks the scrawniest tree because he feels sorry for it and thinks that no one else will choose it, and wouldn’t that just be awful for this tree to be on it’s own for Christmas…When he brings the tree to the rest of the cast, they call him names and make fun of him for picking such an awful tree! They just knew that a blockhead like Charlie Brown couldn’t do anything right!
I’ve felt like Charlie Brown this year…On just about every talk show, commercial, signs, or advertisements, something is broadcast as the “reason for the season.” I’ve heard that giving is the true reason of the season…I’ve heard that spending time with family is the true reason of the season…I’ve heard that buying and spending money is the true reason of the season…So much, that I can understand why Charlie Brown and others just don’t know what the “true reason for the season.” Really is…It seems like our culture doesn’t know what the true reason is…
The true reason isn’t about ribbons and bows…The true reason isn’t about trees and family dinners…The true reason isn’t about giving or receiving…Those things happen because we celebrate the true reason…What is the true reason? Maybe Charlie Brown and Linus can help us with that question again. (Clip)
The true reason for the season is that this is the celebration of Jesus’ birth….It isn’t bows, ribbons, trees, family or friends…It’s about Jesus…Now, as we celebrate we have all those things, bows ribbons, trees, family and friends, but we celebrate because of this baby.
Now this is more than just any baby…This baby is God with us…Emmanuel…This baby is hope to all people…This baby is the light in the darkness…This baby is a miracle!
Maybe it’s because it’s hard to put into words what this baby means for us today…Sure we may know the story and have heard it many different ways through many different sounds…But hearing it and knowing it are different…We’ve heard that this baby was to be the Prince of Peace, but have we experienced Jesus as the Prince of Peace in our lives? We know that this baby was born to save the world, but have we experienced Jesus as our Savior?
Jesus is the sign of the ultimate hope…The ultimate joy…This baby; this Jesus is the reason that there is a Christmas!
This story that we have of Jesus’ birth reaches so many people…There’s Mary & Joseph who have traveled far to follow the orders of Caesar…And who have been planning for this baby to come for 9 months! They’ve been through everything that new parents go through in addition to ridicule, death threats, and major embarrassment… There were the angels who were trusted with sharing this news to the world…What big news that they had to share! If they were late or didn’t give the message, what would we have then? And they told the message so beautifully and full of joy and happiness! There are the shepherds, who were minding their own business watching their sheep and they were awoken to an angel telling them about the Messiah that was born….It’s very important to know that the shepherds were there when Jesus was born…Jesus, who was God in flesh, Jesus who was the new King…Jesus wasn’t in a large palace with jewels and crowns, he wasn’t sleeping in an elaborate crib…He was laying in a manger, a feed trough…And dignitaries and celebrities weren’t all around him, but these shepherds who probably smelled from being in the fields with their sheep, who were nowhere near the richest people and were not even celebrities, but some of the lowest classes of people in that society…Jesus was surrounded by these shepherds!
This baby, Emmanuel, God made flesh is for all people…even the shepherds in the fields…Even the wise men traveling from the east…Even all the people of the land…Even you and me…Jesus came to bring hope to all the world…
In that attitude of hope, we celebrate…We rejoice not because we got the best present or we give the best present, but we celebrate because of this baby…This Jesus that was born. The baby that contained all of the joy and hope that we could ever know…Now that’s something to celebrate!