Has anyone noticed the overflow of Christmas movies on television lately?  One channel seems determined to brainwash us with such films on a 24 hour basis.  Most of them are fluffy romance films with the holiday season being only the setting.  Telling a story during the Christmas season must change things for the writers of these efforts.  You do find some of the themes of this season should you watch.  Every film touches on peace, love, or joy as it tells its tale.  The couple usually do fall in love to end up living happily ever after.  Whatever miracle is required comes through at the last minute to bring everyone joy or something similar.  Even the worst of families or relationships are healed by peace.  I really do not mind these programs but they always leave something out.  Why do we even have a Christmas to begin with?

Some tell us that dark forces are taking Jesus out of Christmas to our danger.  Maybe that is true but what if it is something not so ominous?  If believers neglect what really goes on with the holiday then why should we expect anyone else to make it real?  Let me confess my real disdain for the cliché that Jesus is the reason for the season.  I do not disagree with that sentiment but we once again try to take the cosmic and turn it into a slogan we can easily remember.  No one can really capture the truth that the God of this universe came into our world as a newborn child with all that means.  No slogan can wrap its mind around the idea that the creator God would become a Savior by the most unlikely means.  This was not some spur of the moment decision by Him but it is the outcome of centuries of divine activity in the world. 

Whatever in the world God was doing in the Old Testament would lead directly to the manger in Bethlehem.  All of those odd or confusing stories of sacrifice, calling, and human failure would spell out how much we need God's help.  Even an odd book like Leviticus is meant to remind us how we need more than animal offerings to bring God to us.  There is almost two millennia of history leading up to the babe in swaddling clothes.  Yet some of us seem far more comfortable doing what we can do to help God rather than just accept His help now.  We do the religious thing so God may feel an obligation to come along to help us when we cannot help ourselves.  Yet that still falls short of the story.

God came into this world through Jesus to reveal who He is in word and deed.  He will take the first step in reaching out to those in critical need on every level of life.  Jesus will be more than just a nice teacher or philosopher.  We see a muscular God who dares to give of Himself with no guarantee of any response.  His words would turn that world upside down when we learn a new image of God.  Not everyone would get what He was saying since they were focused on how life should be going.  Even less would grasp what He did as their expectations left no room in their heart or minds for truth.  Peace, love, and joy are more than the outcomes of happy experiences.  They truly cannot be known without Jesus.  Anything else is a mere shadow of what Christmas is about.

I want every Christmas season to be about Jesus.  That may be difficult if all we look for is a holiday in soft focus or candlelight.  We find in a manger that the holiday can be treacherous and even dangerous when we allow it to settle in on us.  But we cannot find Christmas any other way.  He did indeed come to our world so we could capture His fullness not by doing our best but allow God to do His.  That is why it is a gift.  That is why it is about Jesus.

Bro. Trey