With Christmas round the corner, it's not difficult to find that every shopping mall has prepared enough promotional items for Christmas. However, they only see Christmas as a business opportunity rather than celebrating it. Just as a writer put it, "Now there is a false god who is in charge of Christmas by revealing itself via business activities, busyness, and shallow entertainment, so that the real Jesus is difficult to find." People are respectfully polite to Santa Claus who wears a red hat, but turn a blind eye to the real man of Christmas, Jesus.
Wasn't it the same with 2,000 years ago? The night Jesus was born, the ignorant men rejected the savior of mankind. "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man as nowhere to lay his head." (NRSV Mat 8:20) When God was preparing the great salvation plan for "the whole world," Jesus was made flesh in a place near the valley of the mountainous area of Palestine. This shows the full dimension of the love of God.
However, we are always like the rebellious Israelites who repeatedly betrayed God. There are all kinds of temptations in life that filled our hearts with earthly matters while pushing Jesus aside. Those superficial things became the pursuit of many people. All the things that Paul regarded as rubbish, yet many people look upon as valuable. The things in the world always break people's heart like thorns, and their inner lives are all lying waste.
In this busy Christmas season, please be still and think if you want to prepare your heart as a manger, so that you could welcome Jesus to your heart. There you surrender the throne on high submissively, and step down from the throne of your heart. Make your heart his home, and accept his control. The Lord is no longer a guest, but the master with absolute power. The room in our heart is too narrow, and filled with filthiness. Yet he is willing to be born inside of us, and everything inside of us will be transformed and renewed by God.
We are how we celebrate. We should know that Jesus came to the world without a room prepared in the inn; however, he reserved a place for each one of us in the heavenly glorious and beautiful temple. Jesus was forced to be laid in a humble manger, so that we can return to the arms of the love of our Heavenly Father. What a grace it is!
When asked why he accepted Jesus Christ as his savior, "the founder of modern management", Peter F. Drucker answered the good news: "When I finally learned of grace, I knew I could never have a better deal than this." God's grace is given to us for free, and it is most worthwhile. But we should be doubly careful with this precious grace, since it is bought with the price of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.
Ron Susek wrote in Silent Night, Holy War that Christmas Eve is actually a night full of wars. The novel talks about the nativity of Jesus where the author combined the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke with the prophecies in Chapter 12 in Revelation. The novel tells us that the birth of Jesus not only brought hope for man but made everyone who follows him walk the path of the cross with Christ.
Only when we see the true meaning of Christmas will we understand that Christmas is not a cheap promotional day, but a holy day when Jesus Christ granted holy salvation with his costly grace. When we celebrate the birth of the Son of God, we're also celebrating the birth of our new lives. Jesus Christ gave his life to us so that we can overcome the world and fear no more.
(The author is a preacher in Anhui Province, currently a theological student. )
Translated by: Grace Hubl
