Perspective

Why is December 25th celebrated as the date of the birth of Jesus? Actually, early Christians did not know the specific night of Jesus’ birth. Some believers tried to calculate the date, but these attempts all involved assumptions and speculations. And no one seemed to be able to agree.

Before there was significance given to December 25, January 6 was a date of important celebration for Christians. According to Bruce Shelley, professor of church history at Denver Seminary, Christians celebrated the appearance of Jesus at the Jordan River and his baptism by John on January 6 as early as the second century. Sometime later they expanded the festival to include Jesus’ birth. They called it Epiphany, which means manifestation. The meaning of the first Christmas was a celebration of the Word manifest in the flesh.

It was the Roman emperor Constantine who made December 25 the date on which Jesus’ birth was to be celebrated. After his conversion in 312, he sought to replace (some say combine) the worship of the sun god with worship of Christ. December 25 had been the date on which the Romans celebrated the birth of the sun god.

For some time even before Constantine, Christians had found ways to replace local religious customs with Christian ones. In fact, many pagan temples were taken over and converted to churches. Many holy days of paganism were replaced with Christian festivals. Christians viewed this process as a conquering of paganism by Christianity. It was part of the process of converting the pagan world.

It was therefore easy and natural for Christians to accept Constantine’s decision to make December 25 the date for all to celebrate Jesus’ birth. They viewed it as evidence that Jesus Christ was superior to the pagan sun god. Jesus was the Son of the only true God and was the Sun of Righteousness of Malachi 4:2.

The sun god had been considered a god of light. Christ was now seen as the true light of God. As the Word of God, he had been present at creation when the light separated the darkness. A brightly shining star pointed the way for the magi. The sun itself withdrew its light when Christ died. At his birth, it must have shined with greater splendor than ever before. Jesus replaced the sun god and Christians took over December 25 as the birthday of the one they saw as the light of the world.

Viewpoints

What are we to make of the Sermon on the Mount? When I was younger I could never read the eloquent words of Jesus’ most famous sermon without cringing. The absolute quality of his teachings left me in awe. “Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Be perfect like God? Are you kidding? “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Wow, and we thought the 10 commandments were tough! Has anyone, including St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa and the apostle Paul ever reached a point in their lives where they were able to completely fulfill those commands?

Yet, in other parts of the gospels, this same Jesus tenderly offered absolute grace. He forgave an adulteress; he forgave the thief on the cross; he not only forgave Peter who denied three times that he ever even knew Jesus, but He called on him to found his church. His grace is absolute, all-encompassing. It even extended to the people who nailed Him to the cross. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

How do we reconcile the absolute ideals found in the Sermon on the Mount with the absolute grace taught throughout the New Testament? Jesus never lowered God’s ideal for us. Yet, I think it would be a big mistake to turn this sermon into another form of legalism. Legalism like that of the Pharisees’ will always fail not because it is too strict, but because it is not strict enough. Jesus demonstrated this in His sermon when he said “You have heard that it was said (in the law), ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

The great Russian novelist, Tolstoy made this distinction between Christianity and all other religions. “A man who professes an external law is like someone standing in the light of a lantern fixed to a post. It is light all around him, but there is nowhere further for him to walk. A man who professes the teachings of Christ is like a man carrying a lantern before him on a pole: the light is in front of him, always lighting up fresh ground and always encouraging him to walk further.”

The Sermon on the Mount forces us to recognize the great distance between God and us. Any attempt to reduce that distance by somehow watering down its demands misses the point altogether. This sermon teaches us that before God, we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We have all fallen from God’s absolute ideal, and we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.

Jesus did not proclaim these high standards so that we would despair over our failure to reach perfection in this life. He proclaimed them to show us the goal toward which God wants us to never stop striving. He is urging us to be like Paul who writes in Philippians 3:12-14. “Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but …I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Roy's Reflections

Our fascination with angels in modern culture is well documented. Angels are the in item. Look around and you will notice a popular television series, an avalanche of books, a host of television specials, several major news features, and a hot market in home decorations and jewelry all built around angels. The word “angel” simply means “messenger from or for God.” From a biblical or religious perspective, the term “angel” is used to identify a heavenly messenger, an example found in Luke 1:26-38:
"Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her,“Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her,“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”Then Mary said to the angel,“How can this be, since I do not know a man?”And the angel answered and said to her,“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.”Then Mary said,“Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.”And the angel departed from her."

However, if we reflect back over our lives, we will notice that a number of familiar people have functioned as a messenger from God for us — in other words, they were angels to us! Whether this person was a Christian brother or sister who just “happened” to call the moment we needed encouragement, or a mentor who challenged us to grow, or someone who cared enough about us to share with us the story of Jesus, most of us have had these kinds of “angels” bless our lives. We need to realize that God calls on each of us to fill this role.

Each one of us is blessed to be in a certain cluster of relationships. Our neighborhood, our church family, the teams for whom our children compete, the schools we attend, the jobs we hold, and the families into which we were born are all part of this incredible and unique cluster. This cluster of relationships is where the angel within us is called to serve. We are God’s messengers of grace, mercy, encouragement, hope, promise, correction, motivation, comfort, and good news. In fact, I believe that most of us would make a far greater impact on the world for Christ if we spent more time taking seriously the “angel within us” than we do by fantasizing about the angels around us!

Does this sound too idealistic? Listen to a few things the New Testament says to us about being God’s messengers, his earth angels, to those around us:
“We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.” (Colossians 1:28-29)
“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:5-6)
“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
“In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect...” (1 Peter 3:15)

Our journey through life is unique. The people with whom we share that journey are equally unique. Our Heavenly Father has placed us in this cluster of relationships and family so that we can make an impact on it with his love and grace. So let’s take seriously these connections God has given us. Let’s open our hearts and set the angel within us free to share the grace, mercy, and good news of Jesus. Let’s be God’s messengers, his earth angels, among the people with whom we share life. Let’s recognize we need to set free the angel within and let the world be touched by God and His Son!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS!

A Daughter's Heart

I have always loved the Christmas season. I remember as a young child going out shopping for gifts. My Dad would give us each $10 and take us to the Bible book store where we would carefully pick out our gifts for our family. We were always so pleased with our selections and my aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents were always “thrilled” with their gifts though they never amounted to much more than a bookmark. Christmas for me has always been about giving. I’m thankful to my earthly parents for instilling that is us as children. Christmas is all about giving.

On that first Christmas morning, God gave us a gift wrapped in the most unlikely packaging, but it was a gift that would be the most valuable one of our lives. Luke 2:7 tells us that Mary “...gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in strips of cloth and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” A humble beginning for the son of the Most High God...born in a barn surrounded by cattle! Have you ever been in a barn? They smell, they’re dirty places, and even the cleanest barn would be the last place I would choose to give birth to a child! It is amazing that God chose this place for his son’s birth! Royalty sleeping on hay? What kind of entrance into the world is that for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Not the way I would have planned Christ’s birth, but then again, I don’t have the wild imagination that God has. If there is one thing I have learned in my life it is that God’s plans are so much better than any I might come up with.

When you really think about how God’s son came into this world you realize that Jesus’ birth set the tone for his entire earthly ministry. On that dark mysterious night, the son of God tiptoed onto this earth while the whole world slept on, unaware that this day was so important to their salvation. Jesus was born to lowly, poor earthly parents. He was raised on the “wrong side of the tracks,” after all, what good could possibly come from Nazareth?

He grew to manhood knowing the pain of poverty and hard work. All this proved to sensitize Jesus Christ to the pain of the world around him. After all, he was the Savior of the world! He knew what royalty was and yet he left it to come to earth to save us. Here he learned what poverty was also. He knew how to abound and how to be abased. He was a man of sorrows and was acquainted with grief. This is why he reached out to the poor and lowly, the outcasts of society. He stopped and healed the lepers and saved the prostitutes. He gave hope to hopeless people. That’s what makes our savior so very special.

He has ascended to his palatial home above, he took his place along side his Father, the God of the Universe, and yet, he has not forgotten those he came to save: the poor and lowly of heart. He still reaches out to hopeless people, giving them new life in him. What a Savior we have in Jesus Christ! What a gift! It is a gift sent to us in strange wrapping, but a gift that would change us forever: a gift that I will never stopped being thrilled with and one I wish to never take for granted!

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the gift of Jesus Christ! Father, though on the day you sent your son to this earth there was no room for him at the Inn, may we make room for him in our hearts. Though Bethlehem overlooked you, dear Jesus, we open wide our arms to embrace you. Thank you for coming in weakness and humility that we might know your strength and power. Thank you for the lessons you have taught us through your humble walk on this earth. Bless you, dear Jesus, for giving up your royalty in exchange for poverty that we might have life in you!