Christ is for Life, Not Just for Christmas

This is my editorial from our parish magazine for December

I thought it would be a real challenge to write something for the magazine that comes out in December without using the "C" word. After all (I told myself) this magazine takes us right through to the end of February. Who wants it all to be about you know what once we get into the new year? But then I realised what a foolish train of thought that is. If I took that approach I realised I would be guilty of following the mindset that produces the rampant commercialism we see at this time of year: pile them high, sell them dear, get it by and forget about it as quickly as possible. No sooner will the great day arrive than they'll start trying to sell us more stuff in the sales and then there will be the holiday offers, and then the DIY stuff, and then gardening equipment, and then...you know how it is...on and on until they start again in September for next December 25th!

But why should we, who know what it's really about, want to get it over with and then move on? I want to savour every bit of it and rejoice, taking in all it means.

So I changed my mind and decided to write about Christmas after all, because the truth is this: Christmas is for life, not just for Christmas. Doesn't matter if we think about it in February, or July, or October. Of course I don't mean the false, worldly, pagan Christmas. That really has no meaning. I mean the real Christmas: the birth of Jesus Christ. Its meaning is for all year round because Christ is for life, not just for Christmas!

As the angels sang, His birth really is "good tidings of great joy" (Luke 2:10). The fact that God came down to earth in the Lord Jesus Christ changed everything forever. That's why Jesus is also known as "Immanuel," because He is "God with us" (Matthew 1:23). It shows that rather than being a distant maker who now has little or nothing to do with ordinary people like us and cares nothing for all the ups and downs of our lives, our God is right there with us through it all. He identifies with His people so completely that even though He is eternally "Spirit" (John 4:24), He was willing to be "manifested in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16) and "became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14) so that He can "sympathise with our weaknesses" (Hebrews 4:15) in the person of His Son.

But even great news though that is, it doesn't even begin to exhaust the riches of God's grace to us in sending Jesus to be born in Bethlehem that first Christmas. The wonderful "glad tidings" -- the Christian gospel -- is that Jesus came not just to sympathise with us but to save us.

He came to save us from all our selfishness, all our pride, all our pettiness, all our prejudices and hatreds, all our failures, and all our wickedness. The only to adequately explain why it took God Himself to come to earth to rescue us is first to acknowledge that we were in need of being rescued! And then to recognise we needed to be rescued by God Himself because our situation was so bad that no one else could do it.

The reason for stressing the seriousness of sin is not to drive us to despair or depression, but to drive us into the saving arms of God! The Bible goes on about sin so you can see the dangerous spiritual position you are in if you are not in Christ; it stresses the sinner's helplessness so that you will abandon any attempt to rescue yourself. We just can't do it: "There is none righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10). "No one is justified by the law in the sight of God" (Galatians 3:11). In other words, we can never please God by trying to be "good enough" or "do enough good".

But the glad tidings of Christmas is that salvation is by God's grace, not by our works. We are saved by what Jesus has done for us. Trying to do enough good to earn our way to heaven is impossible, but the hope of Christmas is that by instead trusting only in the Lord Jesus we shall be saved (Acts 16:31). Through His work -- in His coming as God and Man, living a perfect life, obeying all God's laws, bearing the punishment for our sins on the cross, and showing His victory over death by His resurrection -- Christ has done it all for us. Even his very name tells us this. Before He was born the angel said to Joseph: "You shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21)

So what do you have to do? Actually you don't have to do anything. You just need to rely on God and His promises. You just need to believe Christ can and will save you. Trust in Him and acknowledge that He is Lord: the master and guide of your life. That's all. For it is through faith, through reliance and trust, in Him that Christ's saving work of taking our sins away and giving us His perfect righteousness will change from just being true in the pages of Scripture, or being true for someone else, to being true for you.

Paul wrote: "I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith." (Philippians 3:8-9).

This Christmas God is calling those of us who already know His saving love and grace in Christ to celebrate and give thanks for all the blessings He has lavished on us. But God is also calling everyone who has not yet turned away from their sins and embraced Christ as their Lord and Saviour to do so now. God Himself is calling you: "Look unto Me, and be saved," He says (Isaiah 45:22). What better invitation could there be than the call of Almighty God Himself? What better promise could there be than that made by God to all who respond: "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10:13).

No wonder the writer of Hebrews asks: "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Heb 2:3).

Will you, from this Christmas on, know the real joy of Christmas for the rest of your days, or will you let another year pass by, knowing only the outward show?

I'm praying that if haven't already done so, this Christmas you will make the right choice, because "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:18).