Is Christmas Safe?
Is Christmas safe; is this most wonderful time of the year, this glorious celebration, this miraculous, sacred event safe from becoming just another holiday, another long weekend, just another birthday? Over the years I have found that it is very easy for me to take something that at one time brought me to my knees and turn it into something ordinary, something expected; I take the truth of God and because of my own weakness, my own lack of faith, my own disobedience, I render it powerless in my life. During my very first mission trip to Ghana Africa, one of the worship leaders was addressing the congregation and talking about the beauty of a solar eclipse that had taken place just a few weeks before our visit. He mentioned something about how, in the west, we could have explained everything about the eclipse and even predicted it’s occurrence knowing weeks in advance when it was going to take place; and it would have been viewed by a few and truly appreciated by even fewer. But there in the villages of Ghana, all he heard about during the weeks following the eclipse was how beautiful the eclipse was and how amazing and creative our God is. I am in no way condemning science or technology, but when we come to a point where we can seemingly explain everything away, it is then that perhaps the divine mystery is lost and it becomes harder and harder to surprise us; and the harder it is to surprise us the harder it is for us to be captivated and swept away by God’s everyday blessings. This is also true when we become overly familiar with something; we tend to subconsciously diminish the power that it once had in our lives when it was new and fresh. I believe that if Christmas becomes just another annual holiday than we will have suffered a tragedy of the greatest magnitude and very well have undermined the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So here we are again, the preparations are being made the Christmas carols are being sung and the gifts are being bought. It happens every year and every year we very often celebrate in the same way; we sing the same songs, we eat the same treats and we read the same stories. It is an amazing story, a story of the birth of a king, the King of kings. It’s a story of faith, courage, humility and salvation; a story worthy of all the praise and all the worship that we can muster. The danger comes when we become so familiar with the story that we lose our childlike wonder and fail to see the miracle that took place and the sacrifice that was made on our behalf. As impossible as it sounds to me as I am writing it, I am ashamed to admit that there have been years in my life when Christmas came and went without me pausing and really reflecting on the truth of what happened that beautiful day over two thousand years ago. However, several years ago I stumbled upon what for me rekindled the miracle of this most precious event and I found it in a parable of Jesus’s that I had never read within the context of the Christmas story. It is a story that we are all familiar with but one that many of us have probably never looked at from this perspective.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son takes place in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Luke. This parable is one of the most well-known parables of Jesus. It begins with a son dishonoring his father by requesting that he receives his inheritance while his father is still alive, pretty much telling his dad that he wished that he was dead. To everybody’s surprise the father complies and grants his rebellious son’s wish. The son goes off and squanders every penny that he receives in what the Bible refers to as wild living or loose living. He soon finds himself living in the most unimaginable of circumstances realizing just how good that he had it living at his dad’s house. He makes the decision to return home but realizes there is no way that he could possibly return as his father’s son, not after everything that he had done. So he comes up with a long speech begging for his father’s forgiveness and asking if he could return, not as a son, but as a servant. So as he approaches what he used to call home, “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.” Luke 15:20-24.
And there it is; the Christmas story! I heard it said once, that in many areas in the East this parable is actually not known as the parable of the Prodigal Son but the parable of the Running Father because the most shocking event in the whole story is the fact that the father actually ran to his son. You see, in the first century eastern world an honorable man; a man of position, a prominent man in the community would never have been caught running. To do so he would have to gather up his garments in order to free his legs to lengthen his stride. This would be humiliating for any man. And yet this is exactly what happened on Christmas day two thousand years ago. Our Father in heaven stood at the gates of heaven and, looking down into a fallen world, seeing us in all of our sin, all of our filth knowing that there was nothing that we could ever say or do to earn our way back into His family, humbled Himself, submitted Himself to His own creation and left the glories of heaven making “himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Philippians 2:7. He saw us right where we were, dead in our own sin and gathered up His garments and came running into this broken and fallen world so that he could fall on our necks and embrace us as sons and as daughters; he came to welcome us home.
This is the unexpected place where I reunited with the greatest gift ever given. This is what I remember now, when I am reading and reflecting on the stories that surround the birth of Christ. Yes, it is the birthday of our savior, our king, our lord. It is a beautiful story of faithful servants and glorious obedience. But it is also a story of great sacrifice and unimaginable love. This year nearly thirty thousand people came and experienced the Christmas story in a way that they may have never experienced it before. They came and went on a Journey that took them back into first century Judea to hear a story of the birth of a baby boy. One day this boy would grow into a man and this man would carry the weight of the world on His shoulders up a hill to a rugged cross; one day this baby boy would become sin, even though he had never sinned himself, so that you and I would never have to experience the punishment and the death that he himself experienced, you and I would never again be separated from the Father. I pray that those who experienced the Journey took with them a new sense of wonder for this glorious time of year and that it ignites in them a flame inside that draws them to Him in worship and praise for years to come. I pray that for those who may have never heard of His great love for them, that they heard His voice in a very real way and they met Him as He ran out to meet them right where they were in all of the messiness that is life. I pray that you and I never become so familiar with Christmas that we forget what a beautiful and awful sacrifice was made that day, how undeserving we all are and how we will never be able to earn such a marvelous gift. I pray that every Christmas we all fall to our knees in worship and acknowledge once again the coming of our King, and it reminds us that we serve a loving and personal God who humbled himself and became Immanuel, God with us; who entered into our world so that it would be possible for us to live in His! Merry Christmas!
Contributor: Ryan Willoughby
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