A Christmas Thought

 Good morning !

 During the holiday season, I have a tough time knowing what to say in my Thursday Thought forum.  On the one hand, I should say something about the happiness of the holiday…something about the true meaning of Christmas, the gathering of families, and the generally festive atmosphere.  And it is a great time of the year to renew friendships, foster family relationships, and demonstrate care and concern for others.  We buy gifts for one-another.  Donations to non-profit organizations increase and many people are more in tune with the needs of others during this time.

On the other hand, there is a darker side that tends to come to more to the forefront during this time.  Homelessness is part of that darker side for the lower classes, as is hunger, poverty, lack of medical accessibility…and in the more upper classes, greed, self-centeredness, and lust for power seem to be the thing.  If I talk of the happy things in my post, it seems like I’m ignoring the reality that all isn’t joy and love in the world.  If I talk of the darker things, it seems like I’m ignoring the reality that there is indeed joy and love in the world.

Yes, I know, it’s a conundrum that I’ve sort of created for myself.  I could just choose to ignore one or the other of the realities I mentioned and concentrate on the other.  Many people do that, in fact.  Many choose to be ignorant of the great basic needs of others and try to be in a happy place continually, oblivious to the hurt and pain of the needy.  They’ll party on, continually grabbing at more power, prestige, and wealth with no thought for those in the margins.

Others, however, will concentrate on the ills of society and the plight of the needy.  They will choose to not be part of the happiness that is available…fixating instead on the darker side of things, with a sort of doom and gloom mentality which says that all of society is going into the dumpster unless these issues are fixed.

So, let’s do this.  Instead of either one of those extremes, I’ll concentrate on what I should be concentrating on most of all this time of the year.  That is, of course, the incarnation and birth of Jesus, the Christ of God.

Many call this whole Jesus the Son of God thing fanciful and fake.  Oh, they recognize that Jesus was a real person who lived in the Jewish part of the Roman Empire in the first century; that he was a great teacher and rabbi.  But as far as being God incarnate goes, well, that just goes too far.  A virginal conception is just impossible.  The life and crucifixion of Jesus was a matter of historical fact, but his resurrection…no way.

However, many others have encountered the risen Christ in their lives.  People throughout the centuries have not only acknowledged Jesus as Lord and God, but have placed their faith and trust in him, changing their lives in the process and changing the lives of countless others through their service and love for whom Jesus calls their neighbor.

I don’t know where you fall in all of this.  But I say to you who might not believe the Jesus story.  What if it’s true?  What if it really happened as has been told in not only the Biblical accounts, but also in secular historical accounts?  What if this Jesus really was and is God incarnate?

I know there are many who have relegated that old question, “What will you do with Jesus?” to the trash bin.  But it remains, regardless of your or anyone else’s opinion, one of the seminal questions of all time.  And I continue to believe, even though others do not, that there are but three answers to the question.  That Jesus is an historical figure in the Jewish Roman Empire of the first century is beyond question and established fact.  The same goes for his life of teaching and his crucifixion by the Romans.

So, the answers to, “What will you do with Jesus?” which remain must be those that C. S. Lewis gave to that question in his book “Mere Christianity.”  And I quote Lewis here.

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse….  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

 

May your Christmas day be blessed.