The absolute best Christmas of all!

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.  It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ.  Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel" (Luke 2:25-32).

In a Peanuts cartoon by Charles Schulz, Lucy throws up her hands in despair and cries, “For months we looked forward to Christmas.  We couldn’t wait till it came, and now it’s all over!”

Radio stations have been playing Christmas music since Thanksgiving.  Stores had Christmas displays out before Halloween.  Many people put up their lights before the temperature dips below freezing.  Some even buy their presents a year in advance, during the sales that follow Christmas.

How long have you been looking forward to Christmas?  And what were your expectations for the holidays?  Did you get all the presents you were hoping to?  Did you manage to get together with all your friends and relatives?  Or did this Christmas leave you feeling a little let down?  Were there some people that you didn’t hear from?  Did you open any gifts that were odd or disappointing?  Did the weather or scheduling problems interfere with travel plans?  After weeks and months of build up, how do you feel now that Christmas is over?

Christmas comes around every year.  It can seem like a long wait for December 25th to arrive, but most people get to celebrate several dozen Christmases over the span of a lifetime.   Yet those twelve months of waiting can build your expectations to the point that, as Christmas gets close, you can barely wait for it to arrive.

Imagine if Christmas only came once, and you had to wait your whole life for it.  How excited would you be when that special holiday finally arrived?  How bitterly disappointed would you be if that one and only Christmas fell short of expectations?  How would you feel the week after you celebrated that once in a lifetime special event?

This was the situation for Simeon.  The Holy Spirit had told him that he would not die until he saw the Christ of God arrive on earth.  Simeon was promised one Christmas only—the very first Christmas, when our Lord Jesus was born. 

Simeon waited his entire life for Christmas to arrive.  He didn’t know when it would take place—there was no date circled on the calendar.  Each morning when he woke up, he must have wondered ‘will Christ arrive today?’  Day after day, month after month, year after year went by, each day starting with the same question.  How would you handle the wondering, the expectation, the wait?

But one morning was different.  On that most special day, the Holy Spirit prompted Simeon to go to the temple.  There he found a carpenter from Nazareth, his young wife, and a baby that was eight days old.  The parents had brought their child to be circumcised, a rite of dedication that made children members of God’s chosen people.  

As soon as he laid eyes on baby, Simeon knew that this boy was special, different from all other children.  For the first time in his life, Simeon looked at a human being who was perfect—the Christ child had no taint of evil disfiguring His soul.  All human beings are conceived and born sinful.  But Jesus was different—His father was God.  Mary was a virgin—her child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  Of all the boys and girls throughout history, Jesus alone was perfect.  Enabled by the Holy Spirit, Simeon immediately saw the difference.

This was the moment Simeon had waited a lifetime for.  He approached Mary and Joseph, and with their surprised consent took the baby Jesus in his arms.  Did Simeon have words of praise practiced and ready for this momentous occasion, or did he make them up on the spot?  We don’t know, but imagine the huge smile on his face as he gave praise to God: "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." 

That day in the temple was the high point of Simeon’s life.  He said, now dismiss your servant in peace.  Simeon was ready to leave this life; he had seen God’s promise of forgiveness and eternal life with his own two eyes, held it in his own two hands.  Anything else that life could offer paled in comparison.  Simeon had experienced the first and best Christmas, and he could now die happy.

Think about Simeon’s one and only Christmas.  No cards.  No lights.  No music.  No parties.  No gifts.  The only thing that he wanted out of Christmas was to spend time with Christ.  And that single thing was worth waiting a lifetime for.

Simeon puts Christmas into perspective for us.  Decorations are nice to look at.  Carols are fun to sing.  We like spending time together with our friends and family.  And who doesn’t enjoy getting presents?  But these things don’t define Christmas.  You get presents on your birthday.  You can see your relatives and friends at family and school reunions.  You can decorate your house for any number of different holidays.  But Christmas has one thing that is special—it has the Christ child.

Birthdays are nice—but let’s face it, as we get older they lose some of their charm.  Holidays are important—it’s good to remember those who made sacrifices in the past, and give thanks for all the good things that we have today.  But Christmas draws our attention towards heaven and the God who lives there.  Christmas reminds us how much we need the Lord in our lives.  Christmas assures us of His love.

God is holy.  He is light and truth, power and justice, wisdom and love.  He is the source and pattern for everything good.  As such, He both attracts and repels us.  He attracts us because we hunger for the good things He gives.  But He repels us, because we are badly flawed and resent His demands to be holy.  We are filled with a love for darkness, and it pains us to look into God’s holy light.

Left to ourselves, life would be an exercise in futility.  We are sinners through and through.  We enjoy being selfish.  We are quick to hurt others, sometimes carelessly, other times deliberately.  And even when we try to do good, our efforts are flawed and sometimes backfire.  Life is a string of disappointments and wasted opportunities.  Worst of all, it ends with death and God’s punishment in hell.

Thankfully, God loves us—loves us so much that He sent His Son to come join us here on earth.  Jesus did not come to Lord it over us; He was not born in a palace or raised in the temple.  Jesus came to live with us.  He was born in a stable where shepherds dirty from the fields could come and worship Him.  He was raised as a carpenter, even though His hands shaped the universe at the Father’s command.  He walked dusty roads so the sick could feel His healing touch.  He taught in peoples’ homes, giving new hope to those lost in despair.   Jesus is our Immanuel, which means ‘God with us.’

Most important of all, Jesus was born so that He could die.  God is immortal; God cannot die.  Yet death is God’s curse on sin; in order to free us from the curse, God’s Son needed to die in our place.  And so Jesus was born of the virgin Mary.  The Son of God took shape as a baby and grew to manhood, the one and only perfect man in a very imperfect world.  People were attracted to Him and repelled by Him.  Some loved Him and wanted to follow in His steps; others hated Him and everything He represented.  But God turned that hatred to a good end; that hatred led Jesus to the cross, where He suffered the hell and died the death that you and I deserve for sinning.  The Christ of God was born to die, but in dying He gave us the greatest gifts of all—forgiveness and eternal life.  Jesus rose from the grave, showing that His victory over sin and death is complete.  He lives to forgive our sins and lift our souls to join Him in heaven. 

This is God’s gift to us.  We do not earn it by living holy lives—we fall way short of that standard each and every day.  Jesus said, The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent (John 6:29).  The Lord wants us to give our trust to Jesus—trust that He is Immanuel, God with us.  Trust that He did die for our sins and rise from the grave.  Trust that He does love us, and forgives us when we admit that we’ve done wrong.  Trust that He will take us to heaven to live with Him there. 

The best Christmas present is Christ—but you must trust Him or the gift is of no value.  Suppose a child gives you a present; when you unwrap it, you find a piece of paper made to look like a check for a million dollars.  You smile and thank the youngster for the thought—but you would never dream of taking that check to the bank.  You don’t believe that it’s worth anything.

Jesus offers to pay off your debt of sin.  He offers you the deed to a mansion in heaven.  But if you don’t trust that what He offers is real, those promises won’t do you any good.  That’s why it’s so important to trust Jesus and take Him at His word.  Christ said, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son (John 3:16-18).

Simeon saw the Christ child, and held Him in his arms.  Yet the smile on Simeon’s face came from trust.  He trusted that Jesus was Immanuel, God with us—there was no visible proof to confirm it.  The Holy Spirit told Simeon that this child was the One, but Simeon could have responded, ‘yeah, right.’  But because He believed, Simeon’s first Christmas was so wonderful that He told God “I’m ready to go whenever You want me; I’ve seen the Savior, and I can die content.”

Christmas is over for another year.  Soon the decorations will come down and most of the gifts will be stuffed into closets.  But if you’re disappointed that the holiday season is winding down, remember the big smile on Simeon’s face.  For Him, the best part of Christmas was spending time with Christ.  You have that privilege all the time—through prayer and Bible study, worship and Holy Communion.  Jesus said, I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20).  He is Immanuel; in Christ, God is with us—always.