A woman was Christmas shopping with her two children. After a couple of hours of walking down row after row of toys, and during those hours hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the store elevator with her two children.

She was feeling what so many of us feel during the holiday season time of the year, getting that perfect gift for every single person on our shopping list, overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, taste all the holiday food and treats, making sure we don't forget anyone on our card list, and the pressure of making sure we respond to everyone who sent us a card.

Finally the elevator doors opened revealing a crowd in the car. She pushed her way in and dragged her two kids and all her bags of stuff in with her. As the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore and blurted out, "Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up, and shot." From the back of the car, a quiet calm voice responded, "Don't worry, they’ve already crucified Him."

WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN TO YOU?   Audio       12-24-06 a.m.

Matthew 1:18-21 (21)

A woman was Christmas shopping with her two children. After a couple of hours of walking down row after row of toys, and during those hours hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the store elevator with her two children.

She was feeling what so many of us feel during the holiday season time of the year, getting that perfect gift for every single person on our shopping list, overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, taste all the holiday food and treats, making sure we don't forget anyone on our card list, and the pressure of making sure we respond to everyone who sent us a card.

Finally the elevator doors opened revealing a crowd in the car. She pushed her way in and dragged her two kids and all her bags of stuff in with her. As the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore and blurted out, "Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up, and shot." From the back of the car, a quiet calm voice responded, "Don't worry, they’ve already crucified Him."

The rest of the trip down was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN TO YOU?  (Video interviews.)

Some see Christmas as an important family time.

Christmas is a time for families to get together. It doesn’t say that in the Bible, But that is the tradition that most families have established. That’s what makes the Christmas season difficult for some people, why some people see Christmas as a sad time rather than a happy time.

Some do not have any family to get together with. Some are separated by long distances from their family. There are some of you who have moved here from other places, and it’s not possible for you to go back at Christmas to where your family lives. And that causes sadness in some people.

Others are separated not by a distance counted in miles, but by a distance counted in emotional scars. The memories of their family are painful, and the last thing in the world they want to do is to get back together with that one who has wounded them so deeply.

But most of us have family traditions that bring us together. As long as my mom was alive, my brothers and their kids and Mary Ann and our kids used to work harder at getting all together sometime around Christmas.

But now mom is gone, and each of us boys have grandchildren of our own, and so each of us now get together with our own families. But isn’t Christmas more than just families getting together?

Some see Christmas as a season of giving.

And aren’t the retailers glad? This is the season for them to make it or break it. That’s the reason it’s so hard to get out of the parking lot after church on Sundays between Thanksgiving and New Years. Wal Mart is glad that Christmas is a season for giving.

But despite the crass commercialism of Christmas, it is the season when God gave to us a wonderful gift. The angel that announced Jesus’ birth to the shepherds called it “good news of great joy.” John 3:16 says: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Some believe that the tradition of our giving gifts to each other at Christmas comes from the Wise Men who came bringing gifts to the Baby Jesus soon after His birth. They brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh, gifts that were worth a great deal of money. And so we give gifts at Christmas time.

Some see Christmas as a season of getting.

They are not so much concerned about giving as they are about getting: “What an I getting this Christmas? What have you bought for me? Is it what I asked for? Did you get me everything on my list?” And Christmas becomes a season of selfishness, the exact opposite of what the coming of Jesus is really all about.

Some see Christmas as a purely secular holiday. They ignore its historical roots and may even change the name. So now we have stores where the greeting “Merry Christmas” is banned, and it’s now “Happy Holidays”.  And yet the word “holiday” comes from “holy day”, so how can you have a secular holy day? Yet that’s the way many in our society see Christmas, no different than Labor Day.

Mary saw Christmas as the end of a 9 month pregnancy, and the fulfillment of what the angel had spoken to her those long months ago.

Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. Lk. 1:31-32

I have tried many times to imagine what this announcement must have been like for Mary. How do you tell your parents? How do you tell your fiancé? How do you withstand the condemning looks of your friends and others in your small town of Nazareth? Everyone thought she was a good girl, but now she’s pregnant and not yet married. For Joseph it was a real struggle and his plan was to break off the engagement.

But an angel appeared to him and reassured him it was all going to be OK, that the child growing within Mary was indeed of God and would be the Son of God.

Then in her 9^th month there had been that long trip to Bethlehem to register for the new tax that had been imposed. It had all been orchestrated by God to fulfill the prophecies that had been made about the birth and life of the Messiah, the One sent from God. He would not be born in a palace but in a stable, in the most humble of places.

For Mary, Christmas meant the waiting was over, the promises were about to be fulfilled.

Jesus saw Christmas as the beginning of His earthly mission.

Our reading from the Gospel of Matthew gives us the reason why Jesus came: (read Matt. 1:18-21) She will give birth to a son, & you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins

Jesus came because of something called “sin”. And the Bible says that He came to save us from it. He did not come just so we could have this wonderful season of the year. He did not come so we could put up the lights and the decorations in our homes. He did not come so we could sing “Silent Night”, and “O Come All Ye Faithful”, and “Joy to the World”. He came on a mission.

Philippians 2, beginning in v.5 says: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! (v.5-8)

John 3:17, the verse following the one we read just a moment ago says:  God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

And there’s that word again. Saved from what? The angel said to Joseph, He will save His people from their sins.

Both the teachings of the Bible and our own experience tell us that we have failed to be and to do all that God would have us to – we have sinned. We have missed the mark. We have disobeyed God. And we are all in that same boat. None of us is without sin. I have sinned, you have sinned, the Pope has sinned, Billy Graham has sinned, Mother Teresa has sinned. We all have. So Jesus came for us all, to save us from our sin and its consequences.

As John wrote His gospel, he was directed by the Holy Spirit to write differently than the others. He makes no reference to the angels’ announcements, no reference to the shepherds, no reference to the stable or the manger or the wise men. He goes back even further and begins speaking of Jesus by saying:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus came as part of that which we know as the One True God, and as God he made His dwelling among men. He lived among us as the Word made flesh. He began as a baby, helpless and dependent. Can you imagine God doing that? It’s almost inconceivable. But He did not stay a baby.

He experienced childhood with all its challenges. He experienced the teenage years. He experienced young adulthood. For 33 years He lived in that human body. He experienced hunger; He experienced thirst; He experienced weariness; He experienced joy; He experienced anger; He experienced love; He experienced disappointment.

He not only taught us what God is like, He showed us what God is like – by His actions and attitudes and reactions.

But Jesus did not just come to live; He came to die. That was the only way He could fulfill His mission “to seek and to save the lost”, as He put it. That was the only way He could save us from our sins.

He was sinless, yet the Bible says the sins of us all were laid on Him as He went to the cross. And there on the cross He fulfilled Him mission by taking the penalty for the sins of us all.

That’s why the old righteous and devout man named Simeon said the things he did to Mary when she brought Jesus to the Temple for the ritual circumcision that was performed on every Jewish boy. God had promised Simeon he would not die before seeing the Lord’s Christ.

When he met Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus that day, he was moved by the Spirit of God, and here are the words he spoke as he blessed this family: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Luke 2:34-35)  A sword is going to pierce your own spirit, Mary, as the spear pierces your son’s heart.

Which brings us now to our final question today:

What does Christmas mean to you?

Mary Ann and I have just come from spending 8 wonderful days with our family, our children and our grandchildren. To us, Christmas is a time for family. That’s why we are having two family services here today, one this morning and one this evening at 5 p.m. But Christmas is more than just a family time.

It’s more than giving and receiving gifts from each other. It’s more than traditions, as wonderful as those traditions might be. God intends for Christmas to be more than that. He intends it to be a reminder of His gift to us, the gift of eternal life that He offers to us in His Son, Jesus.

Christmas, from God’s perspective, is to be a time of His giving and our receiving, of our receiving His grace, of our receiving His good gifts that we do not deserve, of our receiving the salvation from our sins that Jesus came to bring us.

What does Christmas mean to you? Are you today thanking God for His grace that He has shown you in the coming of Jesus to be your Savior? Have you received His gift of eternal life? That’s the main reason Jesus came – so you could have spiritual life both now and throughout all eternity.  As a church reader-board sign that I saw recently said: “Jesus is the gift; you are the reason for the season.”

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