Responding to Christmas

Christmas brings forth a variety of responses in today's world. Faithful believers celebrate and rejoice. The world focuses on lights, decorations and gifts with little understanding of what is being celebrated. The atheist and agnostic labors feverishly to turn Christmas into xmas. Sometimes we catch ourselves wishing the response to Christmas could be the way it used to be. Actually, it is! The responses today are no different then they were at that first Christmas.

In Matthew 2:3 we read, "And when Herod the king heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." The mention of the birth of a king troubled some of those in the world to which Christ came. They were afraid of change, particularly in their lives. They did not want someone to whom they would be responsible. The efforts of Herod to destroy Jesus are based on the same denial as the efforts to remove Christ and Christmas from view today. People just do not want to submit to God.

In verse 4 of the same chapter we read, "And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he (Herod) began to inquire of them where the Christ was to be born." He learned from them that Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem. The interesting thing is that the religious community was not even curious about the report of Jesus' arrival. They took no action to seek him for themselves. There was no real excitement that stirred within them. They fulfilled the prophecy, "Who has believed our report?" Like many today who decorate, party and carry out pageantry without understanding the meaning of Christmas, they continued on in their meaningless activities. They ignored the One who had come to bring meaning to life and eternity.

Only in those who were willing to humble themselves - Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men - do we find the response God seeks from us. Each in his own turn accepted the working of God in their lives through his Son. It is those today who have humbled themselves before God, confessed their own need and received God's gift of salvation in Christ who truly understand Christmas. They join the worshipers of that first Christmas in a relationship with the God-Man of Christmas. How have you responded?