No Christmas!

In 2001, the normally much more serious author of "legal fiction" John Grisham published a short comedy novel called "Skipping Christmas" about Luther and Nora Krank, a usually cheerfully Christmas "spirited" couple  who decided to avoid all the "brouhaha" around the Christmas Season. In 2004 the book was made into a movie"Christmas with The Kranks".

The book is a light-hearted look at the season that most of us love/hate, usually in a stressed-credit-card-maxed-out kinda way. 

Imagine then... what if Satan had been successful in his myriad attempts to stop the birth of our Lord. What if Christmas had never been? What if the Season of goodwill and glad tidings was nothing more than just another day? Would our world be very different, would we even notice, or care? 

Christmas is much more than just another day, oh for sure we detest the rampant consumerism of the season, the mad rush, the endless search for "just the right gift". In New Zealand and elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas coincides with our summer holidays, so no snowy sights for us, often the beach beckons. It's doubtful that Jesus was actually born on December 25th, that date appears nowhere in the Bible, the Hebrew/Jewish calendar is an entirely different being. The fact that Luke records that the shepherds were tending their flocks (Luke 2:8) would suggest a spring or summer birth.  It was not until about 200AD a Christian teacher in Egypt first suggested December 25 as "the probable" date for Jesus' birth.   

A British physicist and astronomer, David Hughes, has calculated that the date was between September 17, and October 7,  7 B.C., based on various scientific evidence, including that of a conjunction of two planets, Jupiter and Saturn, in the constellation Pisces on that date. That rare conjunction is due to been seen again on December 21 this year (2020)

Christmas is unique, no other religion has a world-wide celebration on the scale of Christmas, nor as festive. Christmas is a family time, a joyous time for memories, fantasies, giving, visiting, singing and love. It is the event of  Christmas that has affected most other religious holidays, Hanukkah tries to keep up, but it was never the festive occasion that Christmas became. If there had never been a Christmas, much of the good in this world would be missing. Much of the good we've experienced individually would be missing. Everyone has a Christmas memory. Most of us have many happy memories, especially from our childhood, or of our own children enjoying the day. 

Without Christmas, something far worse would have happened: Christ would not have visited our little blue planet. I don’t even want to think about life without the birth of Jesus as a man. He came as one of us. To be one of us.... Think about it for a minute.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1:5 NIV

Think on this for a moment... No Christmas.... No Christianity.... No Christians  

Two of the biggest grossing movies of recent years have the story of Christ (in fable form) at their very heart. Two of the world's best known authors J.R.R Tolkien and C.S. Lewis turned their faith in Christ into stories read by millions, and seen (as movies) by many millions more. Why? Because these fables are (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in particular) the Christmas story.    

The Bible tells us that there are 3 pivotal points in earth's history...

The first pivotal point is the creation of the Earth. The second was the Flood, which changed everything for all time. In the days before the flood belief and faith in God was as low as it had ever been, and sin was as dark as it had ever been. This is the reason that God told Noah to build an ark, and that  He was going to change the world. He flooded the earth and for a short time afterward all humankind once again believed in God. 

The third pivotal point is the birth of Jesus Christ, this single event changed the world.  This event changed time itself, the calendar reads BC and AD. These  mean Before Christ and Anno Domini which is Medieval Latin for "in the year of the Lord" The full phrase is "anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi".  This break in time changed everything. That is one of the reasons why we remember this day for the Lord, it was the greatest event in History. It gave us a covenant with the Lord... we no longer had offer sacrifices or go to a priest to be forgiven, all we have to do is pray. 

We give each other gifts on Christmas morning, and the joy and surprise of unwrapping them is universal. For a short while our "inner child" is allowed to run free. Yet there is a gift that far exceeds any that we might give, a gift that countless millions, if not billions, have never bothered to unwrap... God's gift of Salvation...

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 NIV

If you have never opened God’s gift of salvation, He invites you to do so today. Don’t delay, do it now. None of us are promised tomorrow. Without the power of the Holy Ghost, life will be harder than it has to be. His gift of love for each of us will never end.