THE HEART OF CHRISTMAS
I really enjoyed wandering
around North Springfield last week delivering our church Christmas cards. I’ve
never lived anywhere where people celebrate Christmas so enthusiastically.
Trees decorated. Lights everywhere. Laurels
on doors and signs saying “Santa, stop here.” Everybody
looking forward to a really happy time.
But then I heard a piece on
television which started me thinking. The
World’s Longest Car is a Cadillac in California. It is 100 feet long and has 26
wheels – one for every seat. It has video, TVs, quadraphonic hi-fi, six
telephones, a satellite dish, cocktail cabinets, a king-size water bed, and a
swimming pool with a diving board and a Jacuzzi. It bends in the middle to go round corners.
It cost 2 million dollars and weighs 10 tons. And it comes with its own
Tow-Truck. Because this car is so jam packed full of accessories that the one
thing it hasn’t got room for is an engine!
But
is a car isn’t really a car if it hasn’t got an engine? All the optional extras
in the world aren’t worth having if the most basic essential is missing! Which makes me think about the way many people celebrate Christmas.
We
look forward to the food, the turkey and
trimmings and the pudding and the cake, all washed down with plenty of
Christmas spirits. We spend so much on the presents and the stockings and the
cards and the parties. But you don’t actually need these things to have a happy
Christmas. Even Santa and his reindeer, and Christmas trees and fairy lights,
and singing carols are only the wrappings, the tinsel, the
optional extras of Christmas. We
don’t need these things to celebrate, and billions of people around the world
do not have them.
But there wouldn't be a Christmas without Christ. If that Baby had not been born in that stable in
Bethlehem 2000 years ago, we wouldn't have anything to celebrate. Listen to the
words the Angel said to Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
Luke 1:30 “Do not be
afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. 31 You will be with
child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. 32 He
will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. … “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one
to be born will be called the Son of God.
Jesus was unique, the Son of God, God born as a human
being to show us what God is like and to make a way for us to know God again,
Jesus the Saviour of the world, Jesus, the reason for the season.
However many accessories you have, a car isn’t really
a car without an engine. And Christmas isn’t really Christmas without Jesus
Christ. I wish us all a really joyful Christmas. Let’s all remember whose
birthday it is.
For more information phone/text: 07963166459
Email:
peter@northspringfieldbaptistchurch.org
Havengore, North Springfield CM1 6JP
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
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