The True Meaning of Christmas

Strong and Courageous

12/21/2018

If any of you are familiar with the Vegietales cartoon series, you may recall that in one of their Christmas episodes they discovered facetiously that the true meaning of Christmas is “a Buzz-Saw Louie action figure. No the true meaning of Christmas is 12 Buzz-Saw Louies!”

Today, as we are preparing for Christmas to arrive, many of our friends and neighbors that do not have faith in Jesus are looking for that “Buzz-Saw Louie.” The problem is that the “Louie” cannot bring lasting peace and satisfaction. Maybe that is why there is so much depression around the holiday season. The anticipation of Christmas is intense, then the day finally arrives and suddenly everything is over in what seems like just a few minutes. The day quickly ends. The presents are fun and we are grateful for family (or possibly not so much). But there is something that is haunting about a Christ-less Christmas. Maybe a certain bit of restlessness, undefinable depression or possibly some form of regret.

Blaise Pascal, the inventor of the hypodermic needle describes this as a God shaped hole in the human heart, a search for purpose and meaning in life that can only be filled with God alone. We are created, as human beings with this yearning. This spiritual craving is universal in scope. Nicky Gumbel, the pioneer of the Alpha course says, “Men and Women were created to live in a vibrant relationship with God. Without that relationship there will always be a hunger, an emptiness, a feeling that something is missing.” Prince Charles once spoke of his belief that, "for all of the advances of science, there remains deep in the soul if I dare say that word, a persistent and unconscious anxiety that something is missing, some ingredient that makes life worth living.”

Leo Tolstoy, after a long search for meaning in life came up with the only conclusion to the first order question “why do I live?” The best thing that his mind could conceive was that “in the infinity of space and infinity of time, infinitely small particles mutate with infinite complexity.” Being dissatisfied with his conclusion, he “eventually found that the peasant people of Russia had been able to answer this question through their Christian faith”. Only in Jesus Christ do we find the answer to the big questions of life.

Immanuel, Christ with us, born in a manger in Bethlehem. This is the true meaning of Christmas. We celebrate the birth of Christ, and find hope and meaning for life found in him.

Now as we prepare for Christmas to come, let us realize that Immanuel, Jesus incarnate came to earth as the perfect representation of God the Father in order to make His ways known to us.

Jesus is the reason for the season! Merry Christmas!