What does Christmas Mean to You?

                 Christmas, what does that mean any more? This year, which is 2014, the church has come under attack more than ever in the United States. Understandability the church has been attacked. We talk so much about love but we are terrible on that. Jesus said "John 13:34-35 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” But we forget this so often and simply judge everyone and make people listen to us before they allow us to speak. Love, why can't we do that as a body of Christ. I go to a seminary that is founded on the idea of "teach truth, love well" but very few have any concept of loving their neighbor. I have come to understand that this is the one thing that is easily understood but hard to understand and do.

                December 25 is a special day on the church calendar. A day kids spend opening gifts and parents spoil their kids with gifts. (Don't get me wrong the gifts are great and a part of the culture). But we need to remember what Christmas is about.

                Christmas like any other day on the church calendar is a day to remember or an Ebenezer stone. In 1 Samuel 7, Samuel is instructing the Israelites on returning to the. Lord and how to handle the philistines. Samuel placed a stone there for the Israelites to remember that it was the lord who saved them that day. Also. In Joshua 4, Joshua set us memorial stones like the Ebenezer stone to remind the Israelites on what occurred. They were to remember how God took care of the Israelites I the wilderness after the exile, the stones or reminders where there. Because God knew we are a forgetful people whom so quickly often forgets God. God is a jealous God and will not take second seat for anything but helpless us also because he loves us he put things to remind us Him.

                 Christmas is a day we as the body of Christ celebrate not Santa coming to town but Christ coming into the earth as a man born of a woman. Most doubt That Jesus was born on December 25 and they are probably right. It's not about the exact date of the birth but an Ebenezer of His birth. It was a day over 2000 years ago under the rule of Caesar Augustus that a baby was born to a Jewish peasant woman of Nazareth whom was of the Leviticial line married to Joseph a son of David. It is December 25 that we celebrate the birth of a Jewish peasant it was that day that God condescended and came to earth as a baby. He emptied himself not of his divinity, not of his God hear but that he took on himself a moral body to become both man and God in a perfect union to be the sacrifice for all. It was the moment when God looked up with the eyes of a man onto the creation that as Romans 5:10 states “ we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” God entered this world when the world was so deep in sin that it hated the thought of God and yet He came in the form of a baby born in Bethlehem.

           So I ask again, what does Christmas mean? Is it about gifts, about family, about baby Jesus or about a big fat guy who watches all awake or sleeping to give them gifts via a sleigh? I pray Jesus is why you celebrate this time of the year. If not is okay God gave us a freedom of choice. But I will stand to share the Ebenezer stone that's on December 25 to remember that it was on that day so many years ago that world history changed forever, that we had the hope of the redemption of the dark and fallen world around us. We celebrate as the body of Christ to remember the light that entered into this dark world around us. Jesus is the true reason for the Christmas season and it will never be forgotten. For on that night so many moons ago Christ came as a baby to be the Light in the World of the Darkness.