Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas Giving

So what's Christmas all about anyway? Gifts. Lot's of gifts. Oh really? Is it now... Just the other day, I had one of the most candid conversations with Megan I've ever had about Christmas: It's not about mass consumerism and giving people you love (or don't even know) a ton of gifts.

Christmas is about *one gift. *The gift. It is Jesus. Jesus is the beauty behind the holiday. God come to earth. God becomes man. Emmanuel: God with us. God demonstrates with acute clarity that he cares especially for people - for his people.

I guess it's really hard to explain this concept to just any passer-by...

The Christmas message doesn't just stop with the coming of Christ, though. The story is really just beginning... The gift is not just Jesus being *born. It's Jesus *dying. It's Jesus *coming alive again, conquering sin and death itself, that we might live forever by simply *believing* that what I have said is true.

Christmas is not about all this "stuff". It's about Jesus. That's it.