Honoring Christmas

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:16-24).

Ah, the joys of our modern Christmas season! Pushing and shoving to get the last door-buster bargain. Children whining for every toy they see in the store. Rude, overworked clerks in the check-out line. People cutting you off on the road in their rush to get somewhere. Cursing in the kitchen when something is unexpectedly burned. Cursing in the living room when a string of lights is found to be all tangled up.

And there are the decisions to be made. Which family do we spend Christmas Eve with, and who gets Christmas Day? Do I take overtime hours or another part-time job in order to pay for all the presents? Do I try to get time off from work to see my child’s Christmas program? Is this the year to talk to my child about who Santa is? Do I give to charity this year, and if so, to which one and for how much?

Is this the way that Christmas ought to be?

Paul tells us, Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. The power of the Holy Spirit is often compared to a fire—a fire that burns away impurity, a fire that fills us with the warmth of renewed life. But we can stifle that fire; we can push the Holy Spirit out of our hearts. We do this by treating the prophecies of the Bible with contempt.

One way in which we treat God’s prophecies with contempt is in our attitude towards sin. All of us sin many times every day. All of us witness the sins of others many times every day. Our lives are so awash with sin that it is easy to become hardened to it. I grew up in a house where bad language was not used. When I became a teenager, it bothered me to listen to the foul language I heard my classmates using. Whenever I read a paperback, my enjoyment would come to a stop if a character in the story used a swear word. But when I entered the working world as an adult, I heard so much bad language that I began to tune it out. It was not until I spent three years at Seminary that I became sensitive to foul language again. Now it bothers me once more when I hear cursing in a movie or at a social gathering. I am no longer hardened to that behavior.

When we become hardened to sins, we start treating them as if they are no big thing. One church body has even gone on record as saying that there are two kinds of sins—greater sins and lesser sins. According to them, only greater sins are worth losing sleep over; lesser sins are trivial. We tend to gloss over those sins that we think are minor; we don’t think to apologize for them, or bother to ask God to forgive them until Sunday morning during the Confession of Sins. Such sins could include snapping at your spouse or children when you’re frustrated, cutting off another driver in traffic because you are in a hurry, or shouldering another person out of the way at a bargain bin.

But what does Scripture say about "big" sins and "little" sins? When Jesus spoke about God’s expectations for holy living, He said: "I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished" (Matthew 5:18). According to Jesus, there is not even the tiniest punctuation mark in God’s written Law that can be safely overlooked or ignored. Saint James adds, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10).

If this sounds like an impossible command to you, well it is. No one can keep all of God’s Laws perfectly, all day, every day, for his entire life. The sin that we are all born with makes such a thing impossible. That is why Jesus had to come to live for us, die for us, and rise again for us. Jesus had to live a perfect life free of sin so that He could offer that life to God in place of our tainted lives. Jesus had to assume responsibility for our sins and be punished for them by death so that we could be spared God’s holy anger and everlasting punishment. And Jesus had to rise from the grave to eternal rulership in heaven so that He can forgive us our mistakes and lift us to join Him there.

But here comes another way in which we are tempted to treat God’s prophecies with contempt. It is so very easy to not take Jesus seriously. Perhaps it is hard to believe that Jesus really was God in the flesh. A lot of modern scholars would like us to believe that Jesus was only a human teacher, like Confucius or Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The tales of miracles, like turning water into wine, walking on water, or raising the dead, are just colorful stories, not so different from the magical feats attributed to Santa Claus.

But even those who do accept the miracles of Jesus as true are still liable to treat His work with contempt. It is easy to get drunk on Saturday night, repent of your sins on Sunday morning, and have a stiff drink when you get home from church to relieve the stress. It is easy to turn off the alarm Sunday morning and skip going to church because you just went last week. It is easy to let the offering plate pass you by because your wallet is empty from buying Christmas presents the day before.

Just how seriously did Jesus take our situation? Jesus lived in the glories of heaven, where there is no tiredness, no sadness, no pain. But Jesus gave all this up to live among us. Jesus worked long days and became exhausted, healing the sick and forgiving sins. Jesus wept over the sins of His people and over the death of those He loved. Jesus suffered blows, whipping, and nails through His hands and feet to make sure that none of us would ever suffer the kind of pain that we truly deserve because of our sins. This was no small thing that Jesus did; in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked in prayer for an alternative: "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39). The cup of suffering would be so difficult to drink that even the Son of God asked for another way to save Mankind; but as there was no other way, Jesus willingly suffered on the cross and died—for you.

Jesus held nothing back in securing God’s mercy for you. It is nothing short of insulting to take Jesus’ sacrifice for granted by saying that you are sorry and then turning right around to repeat that same sin without a moment’s hesitation or a plea to God for help in resisting temptation. It is nothing short of insulting to begrudge Jesus an hour or two of your time each week, when He gave His very life for you. And how does your giving to the work of God’s kingdom reflect on the gratitude in your heart for all that your Lord has given you?

Saint Paul says, Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. This is excellent advice during the holiday season. Test everything. Look at how you spend your time and your money; look at your behavior. As you prepare to celebrate the anniversary of our Lord’s coming, are your preparations God-pleasing?

How does Jesus feel about rude behavior while shopping? What does God say about our wanting more and more presents every year? What are God’s instructions about stewardship of wealth? What does God say about belief in supernatural beings other than Himself? What does Scripture have to say about letting church attendance slide in the rush to get ready for the holidays? Here are a few passages to refresh your memory:

In regard to losing one’s temper, Jesus said: "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, `Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment" (Matthew 5:21-22). On the subject of greediness, Jesus said: "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke 12:15). Regarding stewardship, Solomon wrote, "He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done" (Proverbs 19:17). When it comes to belief in supernatural beings, God said through Isaiah, "I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God…I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols" (Isaiah 45:5 & 42:8). And as to letting church attendance slip because life is busy? Consider Luke chapter 10, verses 38 to 42: As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Paul tells us to hold on to the good. There are many good parts to celebrating Christmas, ways that treat God’s words with honor. Christmas is a time when charitable giving is at its peak—giving to support the needy is pleasing to God. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40).

A part of God-pleasing stewardship is giving to support the work of bringing the Gospel to those who sit in the darkness of sin. Paul writes, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:15). Giving to mission work helps make the delivery of this Good News possible.

Another God-pleasing part of Christmas is the gathering of family. After making Adam, God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:18), and God made for him a wife; in this way, God created the first family. Jesus showed His approval of marriage by performing His first miracle at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11). In fact, God uses the imagery of family to describe our relationship with Him—He is our Father who art in Heaven, and His Son Jesus is our brother, through our adoption as sons and daughters by faith (Romans 8:23 & Matthew 12:48-50). We were created to be a part of a family—God’s family.

But the most important way in which we can honor our Lord at Christmas time, at any time, is to make time for Him in our lives. It is through the hearing of His word that the Holy Spirit creates and strengthens saving faith in our hearts. It is through the hearing of His word that we are reminded of our need for forgiveness and are reassured of God’s mercy. It is through the hearing of His word that we are given guidance for living a life that has meaning and purpose, by thanking and praising God, and by serving the needs of His other children in humility.

So as you look at your calendar and checkbook, trying to figure out how to distribute your time and money, as you try to decide what to say in your Christmas letters, telephone calls, and emails, test everything. Ask Jesus to help you to put your emphasis this Christmas on holding on to the good, and avoiding the temptation to treat His Word with contempt. Challenge yourself to avoid Christmas activities that weaken the presence of Jesus in your holiday celebration, and let the Lord put Christ in your Christmas.