Are you concerned about the increasing commercialism of Christmas, the continuing re-imaging of Christmas into a secular “winter holiday”? We know that Christmas has a lessening role in our schools, stores greet us with a bland and empty “happy holidays” and the endless “feel-good” stories, shows and movies offered this time of year have little or nothing to do with Jesus. What has happened to Christmas?
Well this concern certainly isn’t news or new. This effort, whether subtle or intentional, has been going on for a long time. From the moment Jesus arrived in a Bethlehem stable, Satan and the forces of darkness have tried to snuff out the Light of the World (see Revelation chapter 12). But that Light still shines, and we still celebrate Christmas. For no matter what the world tries to do to extinguish, block, hide, cover up, minimize, ignore or bury that Christmas Light, it will never succeed. As long as human beings are drawn to the Gospel message of salvation which began at the Nativity and is ours through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as Lord and King, we will celebrate Christmas!
The simple Christmas story of God become flesh is where the salvation message got its start. Planned from before man first sinned, prophesied by God’s anointed spokesmen, visualized in Israel’s feasts and celebrations, anticipated by “all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38), Christmas is the dawn of the coming Light of the World. As followers of the One born Savior of the world, we celebrate His coming into the world and His coming into our hearts, regardless of what our culture does to change the meaning and focus of Christmas.
    So privately as believers, and together as a church, we will continue to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, for like the wise men of old, we come to worship the newborn King. But to truly celebrate Christmas we must not retreat before our culture’s efforts to re-invent Christmas, but instead must re-present Christmas to the world. That is what our upcoming time of Christmas “Service” is all about. How do we do that? By doing exactly what the first Christmas did—go out into the world as servants!
    Consider all the principle characters of the Christmas story. God sent Jesus to our world (Galatians 4:4). Jesus took on the nature of a servant, made in human likeness (Philippians 2:7). Angels left heaven to announce to shepherds that a Savior had been born (Luke 2:11) and those shepherds left their flocks to go to the surrounding communities to tell what they had seen and heard about Jesus (Luke 2:17). God even sent foreigners to the Jewish capital to proclaim to the Jews that their own prophecies had come to pass (Matthew 2:2). Each of these left their “home” to go out to a world that did not know what God was doing to bring about our salvation. The uninformed did not get an invitation to come to see and hear the Gospel. Those who knew and believed went out to proclaim “good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
    Christmas “Service” is all about our going out to serve in the Name of the One born Lord of all. It is about “proclaiming” the true meaning of Christmas by our doing exactly what our Lord came to do, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve...” (Mark 10:45). We need to admit and recognize that we mostly live in a culture that hasn’t heard, can’t hear or refuses to hear, the story of the One called “Emmanuel” (God with us). We can try to  shout above the noise and clamor of our secular holiday celebration, and mostly be ignored. Or we can quietly and meekly imitate our God’s plan to get the whole world’s attention—by serving! For 2000 years, when His Church looks like Him, the world watches and listens, the world sees and hears the Gospel. And some pay so much attention that they too come to believe, and to worship.
    So let us celebrate Christmas the way it was always meant to be celebrated—by living out in our flesh what the One who is God in the flesh came to do, and still does: serve. As Christ took on a human body, we who are the Body of Christ, are being sent out to our world with the true message of Christmas!
 

Denis Whittet