Making Much of This Christmas

It’s Christmas time.  Is anyone else excited about this?  
Here are a few things I love about Christmas:

•  It’s an excuse to drink coffee and tea ALLLLL the time! (because it’s socially acceptable when the weather’s actually cold)

• Christmas lights make me really happy.  Inside. Outside. On trees. Everywhere.
• Christmas music speaks to my heart.
• Merry Main Street. A classic Frisco Tradition.
• Christmas Eve candlelight service
• Movies such as: Holiday Inn, Christmas Carol (especially the Muppet’s version), A Christmas Story, and The Year Without A Santa Clause
• Christmas cookies and Gingerbread houses
• Christmas Parties.
• Tacky Christmas sweaters

But the thing I love most about Christmas is the excitement that comes with knowing that we’re celebrating the coming of Christ.  I mean, let’s be real, everyone loves the gifts and Christmastime does makes people a lot nicer.  But to me, I get excited about the Christmas story but not just because a baby was born in a manger.  Because we’re anticipating an event that happened 2,000 years ago, as a precursor to the event that we’re still anticipating.  Christ came on a quiet night in a backwoods town to a couple who were nobody.  They had wed and were turned out of the “inn,” or better known as their families’ homes, because the coming of the Messiah was uncomfortable and unconventional to normal society.  But God gave up His heavens – which cannot contain Him – to be held in a tiny hand.  The infinite God becomes infant.  

And I love this story.  That Christ was born to a mother and carpenter.  That Shepherds were the first to know.  And then foreign kings came to worship.  But that’s not what gets me giddy at Christmas.  It’s that He came, and He saves!  That Jesus was born so that this aching world might have hope.  And as we look at the Christmas tree, we can be reminded of another tree 2,000 years ago that was hung upon, just as we hang lights upon ours, so that we might be able to celebrate today.  Jesus came and lived a perfect life, a life that was coming to a completion on the cross.  So that we can have life and freedom to celebrate Christmas this season.

One Christmas when I was in elementary school, we had a little store at the school.  You know the school store, right? All the leftover prizes or bad toys that teachers didn’t want were dumped on a table in the hall.  So it was pretty much a junk-sale.  We could bring money and get gifts for people.  So I was so excited to pick something out all by myself.  So I bought Brandon this hot pink monster truck Hotwheels car.  And I brought it home, wrapped it, and knew he would love it!  (We used to play Hotwheels all the time.)  Well, in between the school store and Christmas was at least a week. And when you’re in 3^rd grade, that’s the longest time ever to keep a secret.  So because of my excitement, I showed Brandon what I got him but told him not to let mom or dad know I had showed him.  Well the stinker, on Christmas day, did a horrible job of masking his lack of surprise.  He loved it, and my parents found out that I had shown them.  But I was just too excited to give him a gift to keep it to myself for any amount of time.

Sometimes I think that’s how it ought to be with Christ.  You know?  God was so willing to send Himself for us.  He couldn’t just leave us where we are.  There’s excitement there in saving His people.  And in that, he invites us to meet Him.  He’s reaching for you to have a relationship with him.  We find full satisfaction when this relationship is right.  

So where are you?  Some of you, of us, are reaching back for that relationship, striving to walk with Him daily.  Some of you, of us, might not fully grasp what that means, what Christmas means.  God is inviting you to Him today.  And then some still are wanting to be used, to be called even deeper than we are, to make the most of this Christmas season. 

In Philippians 3, Paul talks about a race.  Like an Olympic footrace.  He’s talking about how he’s grasped salvation, as many of us have, but he says he hasn’t yet grasped perfection.  Paul, who wrote so much of the NT.  Who healed people, planted churches, who I consider such a spiritual giant.  He says he still hasn’t got it yet.  Woah.  So in those times that I think I’ve “arrived” I am reminded that even Paul, in all his knowledge and faith, has not yet arrived.  He says that only Christ can make him perfect.  He is covered in Grace, but then this is what he says: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  So think of a track star: they strive for that finish line, right?  The Sprinter sees that 100 meter finish line and pushes with all their might towards that line.  They forget everything around them and look toward that goal.  He also says that his prize is the “upward call of God.”  I’ve always viewed this word as God picking you.  Like “you’re called so you better do it,” type of thing.  But here, Paul’s talking about salvation, and the call is more of an invitation to a banquet feast.  Like a giant royal banquet feast with the best guests, the best food, the best entertainment. This is what God’s calling you to.  And just like a wedding invitation, you can choose to accept or to not.  But wouldn’t it be a shame to miss it? 

So I challenge you not to miss it this Christmas season.  To make much of this time.  And I think I’m challenging myself too.  Because I get so caught up in the busyness of life that I forget to slow down and remember the excitement of life and of the Gift that God’s given.  And then God reminds me in the red of the changing tree or through His Word.  So let’s celebrate the season with gifts and silly movies and great traditions, but let’s also be excited that Christmas marks the coming of Christ and that He is returning to make all things new, that he gives hope and he has defeated death & sadness & pain.  He has come this Christmas, and He is coming soon! Come, Lord Jesus, Come!

What do you do to make the most of this season?