Dr. Jim Wilkins
By the time you read this article, Christmas has been in the marketplace for a month and a half, and some of you are sick and tired of it all. That’s ok, I am too. The consumerism which Christmas has become, I’m sick and tired of it all. However, I’ll never get tired of the message which Christmas brings. “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people He favors!” Luke 2:14. You have to look pretty hard to see the “God getting glory” part today. Even further scrutiny declares there is little “peace” on earth, even among those who claim God as their own. So what gives? Why has the time set aside to celebrate the birth of the world’s Savior become such a festival of materialism and an absence of the very thing God said would accompany His birth? The answer is not as complicated as you might think because Christmas is a very personal matter. God made it personal when He sent His own Son to be Messiah/Savior. We make it personal when we reject or accept the claim of Jesus Christ to be the Son of God/Savior of the sinner. We make it personal when we understand the little baby born in Bethlehem is the same man who walked the difficult path to Calvary carrying the instrument of His own death—the Cross. Jesus made it personal when He rose from the tomb on the third day. We make it personal when we accept or deny the fact of it.
In reality, Christmas is the most personal holiday ever celebrated because we choose how to celebrate it. We, personally, choose to make it about gifts under the tree, lights on the house, sparkle, glitter and eggnog. Or we personally choose to make it about remembering why Jesus came, and that His coming was for me personally, for you personally.
Sure I get tired of hearing Jingle Bells the day after Halloween, when I haven’t even had a chance to be thankful yet. Of course I think it’s ridiculous when whole towns or block neighbors fight over putting up a Nativity scene. It sickens me to think how jaded and dark our world and our nation has become, and God takes this personally. In fact it is this very darkness that caused God to act in the first place. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness” Isaiah 9:2. Jesus’ great claim is to be this very light the prophet wrote about 700 years before Jesus’ birth. “I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life” John 8:12.
Christmas is personal. Rather than tire of it, celebrate it as long as possible. Turn to the Light of the world and embrace Him today as your own personal savior.
Dr. Jim Wilkins is the Pastor of Fellowship at the Ranch. We meet each Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. in the Clubhouse.