The Meaning of Christmas

Christmas time is indeed upon us. And, with the arrival of this festive season comes the deluge of the holiday movies. Many of us are suckers for these each and every year.

Oh sure, there are the timeless classics like “It’s a Wonderful Life”, but there are also the ones featuring stars we’ve never heard of in formula-driven romantic comedies. All of these movies, sappy and schmaltz-filled though they may be, do tend to at least dance near the real meaning of Christmas, whether its stated or not.

All my life, I’ve been taught, and then repeatedly told, what the real meaning of the season is. Which, for Christians, is the birth of the savior of mankind, Jesus Christ.

But for me, certainly lately, its taken on an entirely different meaning.

For me, the concept of God taking human form, and then humbling Himself to be placed in a lowly manger, surrounded not by kings, but by animals, is a very powerful notion. I can’t imagine a more loving Creator than one who decides He’s going to live as a human being, as one of us, to experience our pains, our challenges, so that He may know fully what it is to be human.

What it says, and thus means, to me these days is simply this: We are not alone. No my friends, we have a Creator who loved us…and still loves us…so much, that He lived among us. He walked as we walk, saw as we saw, and ultimately, felt enormous pain as we feel, only ten times worse in His case. Finally, He died as we all will die. Only, His death was a new beginning for mankind.

His spirit lives among us now. We see it in a friend’s smile, feel it in a loved one’s touch, hear it in laughter, and know it in quiet moments in nature.

We are never alone, in this sometimes bleak world. When I wrote that the holiday movies at least dance near this fact, well, they do. Most of them involve people finding each other and becoming more whole because of it. That’s indeed what God does, finds us, walks with us, and heals us, helping us become more whole. That, to me, is what Christmas is all about: An end to being alone.

I’ve heard it said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that “…if only we knew who walked beside us…” we would never fear or feel loneliness again.

Truer words have never been spoken.

-The Minister