Why do you celebrate Christmas? Are you sure of it? The reason for Christmas seems to get murkier and murkier every year.
At the mall you hear “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas. And there’s the ever increasing commercialism of Christmas by our friendly retailers. With all this, we can get lost in the reason for the celebration.
I’m afraid that many get to the end of the Christmas season and often feel a deep sense of emptiness. We struggle to see past the gifts to the real Giver of Christmas.
Why do we have Christmas? Why did God become one of us? Why this miracle and mystery called the God/Man? To answer these questions we must ask another: What is the sickness of the human race?
Why is it that we, the noblest of creation, created in God’s own image, why do we humans treat each other so badly? Why are we so inhumane to one another?
Why is there such unbridled materialism and greed; why meanness of spirit; why is there chaos and confusion in the world? Why do we make stupid and selfish choices again and again?
Some in the world think they have the answers. Maybe the problem is ignorance. If we just had more information, knowledge and training, all our problems would be solved.
Maybe we’re just nuts. If all of us would agree to be analyzed, diagnosed and treated, then everything would be okay.
Maybe it’s not enough technology. If everyone had access to better and faster computers, I-Phones, and MP3 players, our problems would be solved.
Could it be the constant struggle between those who have and those who don’t—maybe it’s economic disparity that is creating the chaos in the world.
Yes, many think they know the solutions, and that it is in our power to cure the problems in our world. Everyone of the presidential candidates would have us believe they have the correct answer, and the way of peace.
Some would give us universal health care by taxing us into the poor house. Some would promise to raise or lower taxes, depending on the latest poll. And, oh yes, we will have peace if we will just bring the troops home. Don’t you believe their useless promises.
The Bible says the problem with humankind is SIN, and you will never hear a presidential candidate say that. That’s the one thing the world doesn’t want to hear.
“Sin” is a biblical word, a theological word; it’s a word that we moderns do not like because we don’t want to be reminded we are sinners. Sin assumes there is a God. Not only does it assume God. And if you assume God you also assume that God has standards that we do not meet.
Someone wrote, “If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator; if our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist; if our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist; if our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Savior.”
Sin is—coming short of God’s standard for us, not by accident or mistake, but by our own choices. In the early chapters of Romans and in Galatians the Apostle Paul makes it quite clear that God gave the law centuries ago so that we could understand the impossibility of perfectly keeping the law. And our choices have made our world a mess.
This is why Christmas, why God became one of us—we need what the world cannot provide—a Savior. Not just a Savior for the world, but a Savior for each of us—a personal Savior because we are each sinners.
When Mary’s fiancé, Joseph, was struggling with her pregnancy and he wasn’t the father, Gabriel the angel told him, Matthew 1:21, “She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Joseph immediately knew that Mary had told him the truth and she was carrying the promised Messiah. Even His name, Jesus, means, “Salvation is of the Lord.” And the Bible says that immediately Joseph did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife (Matt. 1:24).
The angel also went to the shepherds on the hillside, Luke 2:10-11, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”
The shepherds hurried to town and found Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus who was lying in a manger. When they had seen Him they couldn’t keep this good news to themselves and, the Bible says, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child (Lk. 2:17).
What word did they spread? Just what the angel proclaimed, “A Savior has been born to us. He is Christ the Lord.”
Jesus is not just the God/man—the perfect man exemplifying our humanity; and God revealing His divinity. Jesus is the Savior. This is what Christmas is—God Himself became the God/Man to be our Savior.
The word which spells “Ixthus,” which means fish, came from the early Christians who would place the sign of a fish over their doorpost to identify themselves and communicate that in that house lived a follower of Jesus.
“Ixthus” spells Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the Savior. That’s the Gospel in a nutshell. Do you understand? Do you believe it? Has the good news of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the Savior captured you and changed your life?
What we really celebrate at Christmas is that Jesus is the Savior. Was it because He was born that night that He’s the Savior? No, that was the beginning point.
Was it because He lived a good and perfect life that He is Savior? No, but it was necessary so that He would be without blemish in order for His sacrifice to be acceptable to God.
It is because of what He did on the cross that we celebrate Christmas. Christmas points directly to the Cross of Christ. Take away the cross and there is no Christmas. Is Jesus your Savior?
To say that Jesus is my Savior…
For you to say that Jesus is your Savior you must first of all trust Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross for the free pardon of your sins. Just before He was crucified Jesus was before Pilate.
It was a custom at the Feast of the Passover to release a prisoner. Pilate was inclined to release Jesus, finding no guilt in Him. But the frenzied crowd screamed for Barrabas, an insurrectionist and murderer, to be released and Jesus to be crucified.
There’s that famous scene where Pilate washes his hands in front of the crowd saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. It is your responsibility” (Matt. 27:24). The crowd answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children” (v. 25)
Matthew 27:26 "Then he released Barrabas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified." We think this is part of the Easter story, and it is. But it is also the Christmas story—because this is why Jesus came.
Put yourselves in Barrabas’ shoes. You are sitting alone in your prison cell waiting to be executed, and deservedly so. You hear the soldier walking down the corridor to your cell. It’s your time. He throws open the cell door and says, “Barrabas, you are a freed man. You are free to go. The governor has pardoned you. You don’t have to die today.”
You can hardly believe your ears. Before someone’s mind changes, you jump up, run out of the cell and down the corridor to the outside. But just before you reach freedom, you stop and turn to the guard and ask, “Why am I free?”
He shakes his head and says to you, “I don’t really understand it Barrabas, but a man by the name of Jesus died in your place today.”
Each of us is Barrabas. Jesus died in my and your place. We have all sinned against God. We deserve judgment, condemnation and punishment for our sins.
But the good news is that God himself has provided for our judgment. Jesus Christ, God’s Son, paid the price; He made the sacrifice and took the punishment for our sins. You know what this means?
When Jesus is your Savior your sins do not stand between you and God. Your sins are not a barrier, and your unworthiness is not a hindrance to fellowship with God. God treats us as if we had never sinned.
To say that Jesus is my Savior is to say, “I trust Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for the pardon of my sins.” Have you ever done that? Have you come to that place in your life to trust Christ and Him alone for the forgiveness of your sins?
Secondly, to say Jesus Christ is my Savior is to…
Jesus is not only the source of our eternal salvation; you began living eternity the moment you became a Christian. He is also the source of our daily salvation.
Another way of saying this is, His death on the cross as the perfect sacrifice delivers us from the penalty of sin, but He also delivers us from the power of sin.
Those of us, who know Jesus as our Savior in pardoning our sins, also know we need His strength and guidance and help as long as we live. Everyday we need the Savior who provides for all our needs.
But I’m afraid that many, who have trusted Jesus for the pardon of their sins, do not trust Him for power over sin. There are too many Christians who live their daily lives tied up in knots.
They are slaves to their emotions and passions. They are controlled by their temperaments and their circumstances. They are filled with fear or anger, or bitterness, or jealousy, or lust.
Jesus not only saves us from our sins, He can also provide daily deliverance over all of those things that control and destroy the joy of life for us. He can provide daily power over sin, if we will let Him.
Think of these things as you prepare for Christmas this year. Ask, “Why Christmas?” You will quickly see it’s because our world needs a Savior. This is absolutely true. But it’s much more personal—it’s because you and I need the Savior.
The Christmas story reminds us that there is a Savior. The baby in the manger was born to be my Savior and yours.
That baby born that night, the God/Man, lived a very brief life and died in the prime of His life, a cruel death on a cross to be your Savior, to be my Savior.
Hundreds of years before His birth Isaiah wrote about Him:
Isaiah 53:1 – 6, 1Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
You have been in God’s plan all along. In eternity past He knew about your birth and life today. And he provided a Savior, Jesus Christ, who made eternity future available for you. This is what Christmas is all about. Trust Him; He is the only Savior.