I sat there puzzled.
What are they doing talking about Easter in the middle of a Nativity play?
I was eleven years old, but even I knew that Christmas wasn’t the time to be talking about Easter. It was the story of a baby, the story of life.
Roll forward about eight years to December 1994 when my mum died, just a few days before Christmas. At church on Christmas Day, people walked down the far side of the church because no one knew what to say to me. After all, how do you wish someone a ‘Happy Christmas’ in the midst of their grief?
A couple of days before, we finished her funeral service with the carol, ‘O Come all Ye Faithful.’ You could see people unsure about singing a carol at a funeral, but our minister assured the congregation that this was no mistake. Suddenly that Nativity play from all those years before that spoke of Easter made sense. Christmas is both the celebration of a baby born—showing the wonder of new life—while at the same time his birth anticipates eternal hope for all those he calls. For he has come to give us new life by triumphing over death.
That’s why Christmas—with both life and death as central themes—gives us the gift of an eternal perspective from which to walk through suffering.
LIFE WITHOUT PAUSE
Life doesn’t stop, as our family learned that year in 1994, for Christmas festivities. Life still happens with all the same ups and downs as it has for the other eleven months of the year. Members in our church family and our own families are still going through the mill. Conflicts and tensions within our church family have not halted with a temporary ceasefire, eager to make way for the school nativity productions, Christingles, and carols by candlelight. News headlines have not changed. Everything is taking place side by side.
All the candlelight, tinsel, angel wings, donkeys, extra food, and fairy lights do not alter the reality of our everyday lives. Christ and Christ alone reframes our reality and gives us a living hope. Many coming through the doors of our churches over the Christmas season haven’t been given a break from the very real struggle of their lives. Yet, Christ can speak into and transform their lives, if they are willing to let him enter in.
The gospel narratives begin with the Christmas story, but you can also find it in the apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death –
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Phil 2.5-11
Our message this Christmas is not just that a baby has been born in a stable (or guestroom) or has been laid in a manger. It is about declaring near and far that Jesus Christ is Lord, that he humbled himself to become a baby, to grow and dwell among us; that he came to share our pain and suffering, so that one day we would all bow and confess that he is Lord.
Our ‘Happy Christmas’ greetings are not about tinsel and mince pies. They are declaring our living hope to one another and giving God the glory. They are not just a superfluous greeting to make us feel warm and fuzzy for one day a year, they are a bold declaration of our firm belief in the events of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. They are rich, life-giving greetings of good news for all, just as the angels declared to the shepherds that night.
An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
Luke 2.9-10
Good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
SHARE HOPE
Surely this is good news unlike any other. It should be shared even with those who have walked in darkness and grief, because it is a message of hope. Christmas is not about the tinsel or the food or the festivities, it is a celebration of hope amidst our pain and grief. We have not been forgotten or abandoned.
We celebrate Christmas because our Saviour has come to save us. He has come to dwell with us, to conquer death, and give us resurrection life.
That’s why we worship the baby in the manger.
That’s why our ‘Happy Christmas’ is filled with meaning and hope.