As 2024 rolls in, it’s a time for new beginnings. For a fresh start. For rearranging one’s priorities, if one needs to do that.
One of the perils of celebrating Christmas is that it drives us into this mindless frenzy where there’s hardly any time for thinking. There’s something frenetic about this season. Maybe we’ve been raised into thinking that the busier one is, the more we will get things done! Ergo, the better Christmas is going to be. Not true.
Still and all, there are memorable Christmases for most of us – memorable, in a good way, I hope.
Like this one particular Christmas in 2018 when, for some reason, our Christmas Eve program was packed with meaningful, beautiful things.
We started off the evening by flashing the lyrics of our favorite Christmas songs on a blank wall in our sala. We sang together, praising Jesus for coming down to earth to live, set an example for us to follow, and to give up His life as a ransom for many.
Then our son (who is not a pastor) gave a short study on Luke 2, when Jesus was born. There were many new insights that came from the family.
Then we shared with each other about our highs and lows the past year. There were tears, short silences, sporadic clearing of throats. Then the retelling of how God carried us through our hardships, challenges. All this, of course, was punctuated with lots of laughter as we later recounted our triumphs, the surprise victories, the amazing, unexpected answers to prayers!!! I think that was also the Christmas when our son brought two lovely bottles of chilled champagne which we savored and enjoyed.
We thought the night was already full of unexpectedly good things – until someone came up with the idea of an impromptu re-enactment of Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem, and the birth of Christ. It was too good to pass up.
So we hurriedly set up a makeshift nativity scene using odds and ends. This and that. Like a big red can of biscuits as a structure support for a tiny stable. Then little random plastic animals to set around the manger. A flashlight for the star that led the magi to Christ. My mom’s old ganchillo table top as a veil for Mary, played by our five-year-old granddaughter. An umbrella as the staff of Joseph (a very tired Joseph who was all sweaty from playing with his cousins). A lone shepherd boy to represent the group of shepherds. And another grandson to represent the magi. Perfect casting. I believe it was our 6th grandson, still a baby then, who played Jesus.
The narrator of the unfolding events was one of our daughters who read from a Christmas story book. How convenient! The players entered the Nativity scene one by one, in an orderly fashion, as the story was being read.
It was awesome! Everything fell into place, as if the whole thing had been long-planned and rehearsed. That simple re-enactment made the coming of Christ so real to us.
That has been my most memorable Christmas, so far.
It was also, unbeknownst to us, the last Christmas that our only daughter-in-law was going to spend with us.
I remember how quiet and happy she was, just listening, then sharing her 2018 stories herself, watching the Nativity Story unfold. Four months later, she passed away after 6.5 years of battling cancer. It was quite unexpected.
This reminds me now of friends who, for the first time, spent Christmas without a loved one who passed away this year. I wonder how they are? I wonder how it went for them? I wonder how that vacant space, that empty chair, that palpable absence, was dealt with?
The first Christmas we spent without our daughter-in-law was the Christmas before Covid came upon us. We were in Tokyo for a week with our son and his only child. And the parents of our daughter-in-law.
It was a quiet tribute to her, that Tokyo trip. We wanted to remember that this was a trip she would’ve loved to have gone on. Just a close-knit triple date. With their son making the 7th person in our group.
Christmas, for me, is a tribute to Jesus Christ. His life. His accomplished mission here on earth. His death – which paid for my sins, and gave me the only way to go to heaven.
That’s why Christmas is unbelievably significant. It’s a reminder of how Christ’s birth and death opened the gates of heaven for us.
The ultimate gift for mankind came from Christ. The gift of eternal life – which only Jesus can give because He’s the one Who bought it, Who paid the price for it.
“For the wages of sin is death; but the FREE gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”
If you’ve never in your life personally accepted this gift –
the gift of eternal life – then you have the freedom to accept it now.
Wherever you are, just tell Jesus: “I accept your free gift of eternal life. I surrender my life to you. I thank you for paying the penalty for all my sins. I ask you to be my very own Lord and Savior.”
It’s not about religion. It’s about establishing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s what Christmas is really all about.
