Christmas: The Season of Life

I don’t want you to panic but I really need to tell you something, brace yourself….there are only 5 days left until Christmas (insert scream here)! Granted, maybe you are one of the elite few who had all of their shopping done by July but for the vast majority of us the season of Christmas can be an extremely stressful and anger inducing time. Some of the most flagrant disrespects of humanity happen during Christmas shopping. I’ve seen two grown women have a fistfight in the Disney store fighting over that one last toy, people have been trampled to death because of a “super sale” and people in general are rude, crude and only thinking about their well-being and survival. How did it go so wrong? How did the meaning of Christmas get lost in the lines at the mall waiting to see Santa? Perhaps we’ve never truly understood what Christmas meant in the first place.

I’m sure you’ve heard the catchy phrase before, “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Well that’s true but not complete. Even in Christian circles Christmas has become a commercialized and marketed product similar to a soup line; feeding the masses but nourishing no one. I don’t know how many Christian people have told me that they hate the Christmas season! Really?! How can anyone hate Christmas?

It’s time to take Christmas back. Amidst the hub-bub and bustle, the long lines and frustrating return policies the meaning of Christmas must be redeemed. Christmas is the season of life, it is the time of year that we remember that it is because of a little baby that we have life. God himself looked upon his most cherished creation (humanity) and decided to step off of his throne of glory and splendor to come to earth and be born a helpless little baby. He went from the greatest of strengths to the weakest of all, because he loved you and I more than he loved himself. Let me repeat that, God loves us more than himself and he showed us this in the manger as a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths. As the baby Jesus laid there sleeping those who came to worship realized that this new life would bring forth new life to all men.

So the next time you are standing in a long line, being irritated by a cashier or buying a gift for someone you hardly know remember this; You have been given the gift of life, you didn’t deserve it nor could you ever obtain it on your own, yet God came to earth in a manger, as a baby so that we could have life, life eternal. You know what…this IS the most wonderful time of the year.