Immanuel: God with Us (Matthew 1:18-25)

What is Christmas all about? This is an important question for us to contemplate every 25th of December. This week I came across an article about Christmas written in 2015 by a man named Murray Bass. The title was, “What is Christmas About?” Here is a paragraph from that article:

Then, there is the traditional Christmas: The holiday. It’s the celebration of love demonstrated by selfless giving, the celebration of goodness, of right over wrong, of giving our hearts to others who need our love. There are memories of Christmas past. From childhood, my mother’s long cotton stockings hanging from the mantle for the four Bass children; and Christmas morning when the stockings held a big apple or orange, a few pieces of hard candy and maybe a Big Little book. And the traditional feast to warm the bodies and hearts of the fortunate and unfortunate alike. 

To his credit, the author does go on to demonstrate how these find their place in the actions of Christ. But as I read the article, I could not help but be reminded that this is that the world thinks of Christmas. The movies, the songs, the traditions, all loudly proclaim that Christmas is all about warm fuzzy feelings towards one another. It is all about self-sacrifice. It is all about finding love and joy. Certainly, these are all redeemable things. But is this what Christmas is about? As Christians, we ought to take the opportunity Christmas provides to share the glorious message of Christmas. Not warm fuzzy feelings towards one another, Not self-sacrifice, not finding joy and love. Rather the sacrifice of Christ, the way to joy and love through his redemption. In order to understand this, we must look at the very first Christmas.