Merry Christmas! The day is here! If you look outside in Sidney today, you will see that I was wrong about the white Christmas. An ice fog may not be what we expected, but this Christmas is white! I'll say it again for all of us: Merry Christmas!
Today, you may have searched in vain for the Christ is Christmas among your e-mails from corporations and other organizations. I searched my comic strips diligently, but all I found was a lot of Santa Claus. A spirit of giving is okay, but we need to see Christ in Christmas. While I looked in vain, someone gave me a tap on the heart and said, "I know someone who can send out a Christmas message full of Christ." All I could say was: "You're right Lord, I can do that with your help!"
We may not see any mention of Christ in the worldly part of this holiday, even though the root of Christmas is Christ. Many people and groups may wish you a "Happy Holidays" or some such phrase. But we have each other and our Lord Jesus. Today we can wish each other a "Merry Christmas!" and show the love of Christ to one another. On that first Christmas, no Roman scribe ran around making an official announcement, no Pharisee stood in the temple telling the people that Messiah had come, and the Hosts of Heaven didn't make an appearance to the whole world. Instead the announcement went to a few shepherds, one virgin girl, one simple carpenter, and one priest's wife who knew when the mother of her Lord greeted her. Those few people spread the news of Christ by word of mouth, one or two people at a time. The wise men saw the star, but they were far away when Jesus was born. On that first Christmas, very little of the world knew about Jesus, but marvel at the change that little baby would make in the world!
On this Christmas day we worship our Lord and Savior. We worship God who loved us enough to send His Son to save us. We love each other as Christ commanded us to do. We believe in Jesus. Not one of us has to dress up in a costume and pretend to be Jesus, but we all want to be more like him, especially on this day. We give thanks to God for the gifts we have received on this Christmas, but we give even more thanks for the gift we received on the first Christmas. The world may hear Joy to the World and say, "That's a nice tune." But we hear the same song and thank God for the Joy he gave us in Bethlehem. "For behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people!" God sent us a personal message of great joy, receive it and remember it today!
Happy Christmas to you, and may God's Joy take a hold of your heart today!
Bucky
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