The Best Christmas Ever!

There is no way of sugar coating it.... this year has been a terrible year, and it's finishing on a very sour note! Christmas lockdowns looming all over the place, unexpected reactions to the vaccines that were meant to save us all. Families forced to have to spend Christmas apart, thousands of families mourning the early, unexpected, and often preventable loss of loved ones, countless families with little or no money to enjoy the Christmas Season. Let's face it, Christmas 2020 will go down in history for all the wrong reasons. There have been many better Christmas Seasons. 

 

The best Christmas of them all occurred when Caesar (Octavian) Augustus was the Emperor of the Roman Empire. Sometime in the summer or autumn (fall) of 5 B.C**. Mary was delivered of child, and the true King of the universe became one of us.  

Luke records this stupendous event in his Gospel. Read Luke 2:8-20 here  

Try to picture the night Christ the Messiah was born.... the shepherds, likely residents of Bethlehem, were out in the fields talking to each other trying to stay awake, probably discussing politics, or local gossip, when suddenly the sky was ripped open to reveal a heavenly host or army of angels, proclaiming God's sovereign power and authority. This event must have been the original "shock and awe" happening: shepherds, more used to scaring off wolves and other predators, maybe even the odd rustler, confronted by the heavenly host...  while the common Old Testament name of God is “Lord of Hosts”, a name that even the shepherds would be familiar with, (the term occurs 216 times in the O.T)... actually seeing that host would certainly separate the men from the boys.

An angel (often assumed to be Gabriel) spoke the best news broadcast ever heard!  

"Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger" Luke 2:8-12 NIV 

There were many religious leaders and prestigious people in society in Israel that God could have told, and most of these leaders knew where the baby was to be born but did not take the time or the effort to confirm what the prophets had written in Isaiah's prophecy as recorded in Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born,  to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor,  Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

God could have gone to the rich and famous, the religious authorities, the leaders... but no... He sent His messengers to the lowly, the ordinary, those looked down upon by "decent folks". Because our modern image of the Christmas scene is so soaked with saccharine we expect the scene to be glamorous and upbeat, but God chose a motley crew of men whom today we would equate with beggars to be the first to see the Christ child. When Moses was born, God delivered him straight to the top, right to Pharaoh. But the angels, instead of telling somebody important, announced Messiah's birth to a rag-tag bunch of shepherds. 

The coming of the Messiah was such an awesome event that the sky was torn apart and Heaven came down, blinding light from the Throne Room pierced the darkness, the very essence of Jehovah God touched ground somewhere outside Bethlehem. Most assuredly such a Christmas has never been in the 2000 years since Christmas 1. 

The shepherds believed wholeheartedly So off they went to see the baby. They didn't say if this is true we must go see the baby. They heard, they believed, and they went. Since these very shepherds raised the lambs that were sacrificed to atone for people's sins each spring during Passover, they would have understood the importance of the Messiah's arrival to save the world from sin.

Most people today have a hard time believing in the Christ of Christmas... I have heard many people mutter "'I don't mind celebrating Christmas; but does it have to be so religious"  Many want the decorated tree of Christmas but not the disturbing tree of Calvary. 

In the wonderful tale, "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis, Mr. Beaver tells young Lucy that she’s about to meet the mighty Aslan, king of Narnia. Then Mr. Beaver adds that Aslan is a lion. “Ooh,” said Lucy. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe…. He’s the King, I tell you.”

There is nothing safe about meeting the King of Christmas, The Lion of the Tribe of Judah...have you met Him?  

   

 

** Best guess, the actual date of Christ's birth is not recorded in scripture.