what_christmas

What Christmas is All About, by Randall D. Kittle

In the musical Mame, life begins to take a rather hard road for the main character. As things slip into tough times, Mame breaks into song, singing “We need a little Christmas, right this very minute,” and then brings out the Christmas decorations to help lift everyone’s spirits. For Mame, Christmas was a tonic for the heaviness and unbearability of life.

But Mame was wrong. Like most Americans, she didn’t really understand Christmas. Christmas isn’t merely a tonic to make this world more tolerable. Neither is it simply a shopping season to help keep businesses profitable or just a time for mankind to pause for peace and friendship. The reason we get so many conflicting definitions of Christmas in our days is that everyone wants to define Christmas by what they get out of it. But as Charlie Brown cried out in anguish in A Charlie Brown Christmas, “Isn’t there anyone who can tell me what Christmas is all about?”

In the breathless silence that followed his questioned cry, his little friend Linus responded: “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you. Lights, please.” With that, the world’s smallest and arguably most famous theologian walked to the center of the stage, his security blanket safely in hand, and in a voice that resonates to all of us, declared the Christmas story from Luke 2: “And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.

“And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not! For behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you this day is born in the City of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

“And this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace; good will toward men.’ ”

As the echoes of his voice faded, Linus turned to his friend and in a voice soft with compassion and understanding, said: “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

My friends, that is God’s eternal definition of Christmas. The declaration of those angels 2,000 years ago is the message and meaning of Christmas. They proclaimed that the Savior of the world had been born. God had fulfilled His promise to fallen man to make a way of salvation. Through Jesus Christ, God had provided a way for His good will toward man to be realized and peace with us to be achieved.

You see Mame’s attitude about Christmas was wrong, not because Christmas doesn’t lift your spirits, but because she didn’t go far enough. Christmas isn’t merely a tonic to make this world more tolerable; it is the cure for all that ails mankind. In the incarnation of Jesus Christ that we celebrate at Christmas, we find the solution to all of man’s problems. Sin is forgiven, hell is defeated, and death is conquered all because the mystery of the God’s Messiah has come to rescue mankind.

You and I don’t just “need a little Christmas,” we need the mystery of the incarnation combined with the power of the crucifixion and the resurrection applied to our lives. This and this alone is the cure for the fall of man and the hope of all who trust in God. And this eternal truth — that God loved us enough to come to us so that we can be with Him — is the great news we celebrate at Christmas.