Christmas: A New Beginning

Christmas Eve, 2021 

Everyone celebrates Christmas a little differently. Do you open presents on Christmas eve? Do you open them Christmas day?  Do you celebrate more than one Christmas? 

Many years again when I was in the volunteer service in Seattle, we volunteers lived together in the same house. We opened our presents from home together on Christmas Day. My mom sent me some underwear and socks, among other things. My housemate Lynn told me she felt like I didn’t get very good presents for Christmas. But I thought they were good: I would definitely use them! When I was a kid, I got some toys or things I wanted along with the useful ones, and that was what I was used to! It was a good Christmas. A useful one! 

We all might have different ideas about how you celebrate Christmas. No matter how you celebrate Christmas, the first Christmas was something BIG.  

What made Christmas amazing? A baby was born to show us the way to God, to get us out of the mess we’re in, and to be our salvation. 

God came to earth in Jesus. Because we were caught in sin and shame. In the Old Testament people would sin, they would go against what God wanted. Then God would punish them. The people would realize, we did wrong. We brought this on ourselves. Then they would turn back to God and decide they would try not to sin. Everything was ok for a little while. Then the people went back to sin. Then God punished them again. It was a cycle that repeated, over and over. Finally, God decided, it’s like God said to us, “I just have to go down there myself and help you out of the mess you’re in.”  

Jesus came to the mess we are in. Our mess is our sin. We don’t do what we know we should. We do what we shouldn’t. But we can’t earn our way to God. We aren’t THAT good. Jesus shared our mess, he shared our life in a world of sin, in a world where we don’t always treat each other well. Jesus was supposed to be born in his parents’ hometown of Nazareth, with the support of family around them. Instead Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem. 

We want to honor Jesus. God’s special. We might think Jesus wanted a better situation. Jesus is God after all, we want him to have a home and his parents to be at home when he is born. We want a nice first Christmas for Jesus. 

I think about how my housemate thought I should have better Christmas presents than socks and underwear. We might think: God deserves more than a birth among smelly animals. God deserves more comfortable bedding than straw. His parents deserve more of a welcome than being told there is no room for them. 

But God didn’t send Jesus to be a king who is served by others. Jesus, when he was grown, would say in Luke 22, that he didn’t come to be served by others and have an easy life. Instead, he came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He came to share the troubles and joys of our earthly life. He came to bring us salvation and a new relationship between us and God. 

Jesus came into a mess, to get us out of a mess! So that first Christmas was a new beginning for all of us. Where the world was caught up in sin, caught in a cycle of feeling guilt and shame, and I’ll try to do better, but it doesn’t work. Jesus came to give us a new beginning. 

God came in the most unsuspecting way imaginable, in a tiny, dependent baby. Jesus couldn’t speak! The first guests visiting the new baby were hardworking shepherds in a field, who still smelled liked sheep and were not in their best Sunday, or Sabbath, clothes. The shepherds came to see this baby, and Jesus would grow up to be like them, Jesus would say I am the good shepherd. He was the good shepherd who ate with anybody: with sinners and tax collectors. Jesus would touch lepers and talk to people you just shouldn’t talk to. Jesus came to give anybody and everybody who would turn to God a new beginning. 

This is good news of great joy for everyone! 

Jesus offers us a new beginning. He offers us grace and forgiveness. He calls us his friends when we follow him. 

So, if you’ve been TRYING to do better by God, that’s not enough. We’ve all sinned, and our sin separates us from God. That’s why the Christmas story matters. Because God had a purpose in sending Jesus so that anyone, and this includes you, no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how dark your life has been, anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved and forgiven. If you recognize you need God, simply say, “Yes, Jesus, I need your grace. I give my life to you.” 

I invite you to pray, to give yourself to God: 

Heavenly father, today I ask you to save me and make me new. I put Jesus first in my life. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, so, I could follow you for the rest of my life. Thank you for giving me a new beginning and new life. I give my life to you. Amen.