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| Tuesday, November 20, 2007 |
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Christmas Confusion and Its True Meaning
By Rev. Peter Brechbuhl @ 11:19 AM :: 380 Views ::
0 Comments ::  :: Devotional
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The annual “Christmas confusion” is upon us. By this I mean that society is now pouring out its annual stream of mixed messages and contradictory symbols about “the true meaning of Christmas.”
Santa Claus and his merry reindeer appear in movies, television programs and in store displays. Santa’s mission in life seems to be that he must deliver exactly the right present to every child on Christmas Eve, without breaking his neck as he slides down chimney after chimney. Television commercials depict children joyously opening an enormous number of shiny presents on Christmas morning as their parents gaze at them lovingly. (The parents and Santa must be working together in some unspecified way.)
Television Christmas specials have Frosty the Snowman singing and dancing his way into the hearts of little children. He also tells them that the true meaning of Christmas is to be kind to each other.
Choirs dressed in costumes from medieval England wander around singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” What these strangely clothed singers have to do with the baby Jesus remains unexplained.
Meanwhile, the plastic baby Jesus shivers in a manger in the town square as the ACLU sues to have him removed in order to conform with the principle of the separation of church and state.
Liberal Christians are quoted in the annual Newsweek Christmas edition learnedly denying that the baby Jesus was ever born of a virgin.
We have even exported this confusion of symbols around the world. In one large Japanese department store a display featured Santa Claus holding the infant Jesus behind a sleigh pulled by Snow White’s seven dwarfs!
But what does God tell us in His Word regarding the meaning of Christmas? Galatians 4:4-7 summarizes the whole significance of Christmas, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons....So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
This passage tells us that at exactly the right moment in God’s plan of salvation for all mankind, about 2,000 years ago, the heavenly Father caused His only Son, Jesus Christ, true God and true man, to be born of the virgin Mary. Jesus kept all the commandments of God, never once sinning, and died on the cross to redeem, to buy back, the whole human race from being enslaved to sin, to Satan and to their own sinful nature.
Through faith in Christ’s perfect life, death and resurrection for sin, the believer is no longer a slave to sin but an adopted son and daughter of God, joint heirs of eternal life in heaven!
There is no “Christmas confusion” in the witness of the Scriptures. The meaning of Christmas is that the Savior was born to redeem mankind, to redeem you and me, from sin! |
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