IT’S A WONDERFUL
LIFE:
CELEBRATE IT
December 25,
2013
How
should we celebrate Christmas? Even in Charles Spurgeon’s day, the 19th
century, Christmas was marked with company parties, gifts, carols, eggnog,
large family meals, decorated trees and gatherings. These are good things in
and of themselves and we are free to enjoy them.
The idea of celebrating the coming
of Christ into our world is a good one. Some might complain about the
commercialization of Christmas and the materialism that accompanies it. People
tend to drink too much during this holiday season prompting Operation Red Nose
and police checks. But despite these aberrations, Christians should celebrate
Christmas. The question is: How?
How we celebrate depends on how we
understand Christmas. For George Bailey, in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas coincided with his renewed
appreciation of the life God had given him.
After George had wished he had never
been born, the angel Clarence showed him what his world would look like without
him in it. Slowly George began to understand how blessed his life really was
and he wanted it back.
Let’s watch how George celebrated
this realization:
< Play
chapters 26-28 from It’s a Wonderful Life
>
This
joyful exultation is in keeping with the joy of Advent. The Christ of God has
been born, entering our world as a baby in a manger. There is an interesting
parallel of sorts between this old movie and the even older story of the
Nativity.
Luke 2:17-20 describes four
responses of those who first heard the news that Christ had been born. Each is
a different response that together tells us how to celebrate the birth of our
Lord Jesus.
1.
Proclaim it
A
baby has been born. What do you do? You tell people about it. You proclaim it.
How many of us fathers went to the
phone when our babies were born? We went with joy to tell our families and
friends that our child was born. Did anyone say to you, “Big deal”? Or, “That’s
fine for you, but I choose not to believe it”? No, everyone rejoiced with you.
Very few people would reject your good news that a baby has been born. That’s
why Christmas is relatively easy to accept.
Now it was to shepherds that the
birth announcement was given. Shepherds were out in their fields at night
tending the flock. Shepherds were the least likely witnesses in all of Judea.
They were considered vagabonds and shifty. If a court case required a witness,
no one called on a shepherd. They were uneducated, illiterate, and
inconsequential.
Yet to these “vagrants” angels
appeared and gave a message of cosmic significance. “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for
all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is
the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find the baby
wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger,” (Lk 2:10-12).
How did they respond? They said,
“Let’s go see…” Likely other babies were being born at that time (see Mt 2:16).
But they had a clue: the baby will be in a barn or stable, lying in a manger.
And they found him!
Something about this encounter with
the infant Christ so impacted the men that they felt compelled to tell everyone
they met. “When they had seen him, they
spread the word concerning what had been told them about his child,”
(2:17).
The shepherds needed no authority,
no permission, and no special training to share what they had seen and heard.
Spurgeon wrote, “I imagine if I saw a fire, and heard a poor woman scream at an
upper window, and likely to be burned alive, if I should wheel the fire escape
up to the window, and preserve her life, it would not be so very dreadful a
matter though I might not belong to the regular Fire Brigade.” Do you need
authority to proclaim that Christ is born? Spurgeon exhorted his congregation
that anyone who hears the gospel and has drunk from the water of life is
authorized to tell others about it. The shepherds very naturally shared what
they had seen. You need not be a preacher to share this
good news. In fact, it may be better that you are not.
Good news is for sharing. Proclaim
it.
2.
Wonder at it
“And all who
heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them,” (2:18).
It is safe to say that the people
were amazed in a low-level sense that the shepherds actually had something to
share. We might be amazed in the same sense if the Winnipeg Jets made it to the
playoffs this spring. That is not the kind of amazement that we speak of here.
Rather, we should think of “Holy
Wonder” and a sense of awe that God would come near to us in such a manner.
Many devout people who loved God yearned for God to come and rescue them from
darkness and bondage. To think that God would come near as an infant was beyond
their imagination.
Here we have “Immanuel” – “God with
us.” Not just “God for us” or “God in heaven” – we have “God with us.”
As George Bailey wondered at the
impact of his life on his family and community, we wonder in holy wonder that
the life of God should be wrapped in flesh to become a man. Christmas is a time
for Holy Wonder that the King of kings was born in a feeding trough. What sort
of God comes into the world like this?
We ought to be amazed at Christmastime.
If we go through this Christmas season without pausing to wonder at the
Nativity, then we have missed the reason we celebrate Christmas in the first
place.
3.
Ponder over it
Mary,
the mother of Jesus, enters upon this scene of response with her own reaction
to the birth of God’s Son. “But Mary
treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart,” (2:19).
The word “treasured” carries the
idea of counting things up, like making a list so that you won’t forget
anything. When you have been through a remarkable day and you don’t want to
forget any part of it, you count the moments.
And the word “pondered” goes deeper
than “wondering.” It means to take the events as you have laid them out in your
memory and then go beneath the surface to try to understand what it all means
and why it happened the way it did.
Mary, exhausted from giving birth,
almost asleep, but recounting her visit to her relative Elizabeth, must have ruminated
over the birth of John. Then the visit from Gabriel telling her that she would
bear God’s Son; she must have pondered how God could have chosen her.
We are called to ponder, like Mary,
the wonder of Immanuel. Some celebrities are best known from afar; not Jesus
though, we are to get as close to him as possible. He is to be studied, adored and
considered, loved and imitated. Mary held him in her arms; we hold him in our
hearts.
Mary pondered over what God was
doing in her life. I believe we are to ponder, like Mary, what God is doing in
our lives. This is the time of the year for reflection, to look back and count
the moments where God has shown himself to us. It is a time to ask God to
reveal to us where we did not notice his work of salvation and redemption in
our lives. And it is a time to look ahead to what God will yet do and ponder
that as well.
4.
Glorify God for it
The
final verse tells us that the shepherds were profoundly changed by what they
saw and heard. “The shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which
were just as they had been told,” (2:20).
On the day before Christ was born,
they were in the fields tending their sheep. Having seen the Christ-child they
rushed off to the temple to worship God, right? No, the day after Christ was
born, they went back to their sheep in the fields. Only now their hearts were
filled with praise and glory to God.
James Montgomery Boice said that the
word “glorify” come from “glory,” which originally meant “to have an opinion,”
and ultimately to estimate the true worth of something. You “glorify” anything
when you recognize its true value. To say that the shepherds “glorified” God
means that when they saw Jesus in the manger and beheld the awesome revelation
of God’s incarnation, they were overwhelmed with his power and grace, his
loving-kindness and his wisdom. They just could not stop talking about what
they had seen and heard.
What is amazing and truly
transforming is where they glorified God. As I said a moment ago, they did not
go to the temple to worship God; they went back to where they came from. They
went back to the tedious, thankless, monotonous job of looking after sheep. But
now everything was different. Joy filled their hearts so that the mundane
radiated with new light.
George Bailey returned to the same
life he had left but came back with a new attitude. Consider that when his life
was returned to him, he was filled with a new spirit that changed his view of
things:
He was excited that his lip was
bleeding…
He found the dead petals of his
daughter’s flower…
His car was crashed into the tree (a
symbol of his old life returning)…
He ran through Bedford Falls
proclaiming Christmas, a town that had been his prison, which refused to
release him – now he rejoiced in it…
He blessed the Building and Loan,
the chain that kept him from leaving Bedford Falls…
He wished his enemy a Merry
Christmas, startling old Mr. Potter…
When the bank examiner was at his
home looking for the missing 8000 dollars, he exulted in it, “Isn’t it
wonderful?” he said…
The sheriff was there to arrest him
and that was wonderful too…
The old drafty house, a symbol of
his poverty and failure, now appeared to him as an oasis…
Christmas changed everything for
George. He returned to the same problems and issues that were there before, but
now he realized what was before him. That is, I think, how the shepherds felt
as they returned to their fields.
As we wonder and ponder that Jesus
was born in Bethlehem – Glory to God – we too, return to our routines, to our
jobs, our fields, our work, our homes - following our Christmas festivities. What we
want to do though, is return with a glow in our hearts having revisited the
incarnation of Christ, having beheld the manger scene in our hearts. Our Savior
has been born to us. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Merry Christmas!
And that is what we mean when we say
“Merry Christmas!” It is a celebration that God came near. When Christians say
it, we proclaim that Christ is born to humankind. So proclaim it in the stores
and on the streets and in your homes. This simple proclamation is a testimony
to the world that Jesus is the Savior born to set the people free from sin.
Merry Christmas!
Proclaim it!
Wonder at it!
Ponder over it!
Glorify God for it!
MERRY
CHRISTMAS!
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