Significance of Christ's Birth

Introduction

Millions of people celebrates Christmas around the world. But as time goes by, the significance of this joyous celebrates has rapidly deteriorated and was lost. Nowadays, for many people Christmas means the time of giving and exchanging cards, the time for someone lonely to have a company, the time for loving and being loved.

Before we start, let us define Christmas first in layman's term. The dictionary defines Christmas as “Christmas Christ"mas, n. [Christ + mass.] An annual church festival (December 25) and in some States a legal holiday, in memory of the birth of Christ, often celebrated by a particular church service, and also by special gifts, greetings, and hospitality. [1913 Webster]”

Therefore, Christmas is what we call a celebration of Christ's birth.

But what does it really mean? God's message of Christmas never changed. Today, we will take another look to what Christmas symbolizes.

Christmas For Modern Christians

Christmas is a Birthday Celebration of Jesus (John 1:14).

Please note that we did not say “birthday of Jesus” but a birthday celebration. Lots of legalistic Christians never wanted to celebrate Christmas because historically speaking it is a pagan practice origin.

It is true that December 25 is definitely not the exact date of Christ's birth. And the truth is, we do not know when was the exact birth date of Christ. But is there anything wrong in celebrating a birthday? I believe all of us really love to have a birthday celebration.

I am not saying though that God love nor hate birthday celebration. But when we celebrate a birthday, we celebrate because we love that person and we definitely want to make him happy. And this is the idea of Christmas.

Another good thing that we would want to make sure is the purpose and the attitude of our hearts every time we celebrate Christmas. Sometimes even in Christian communities we fell in wrong motives. We want to receive gifts rather than to give. Christmas is more than a celebration, it is also a commemoration of Jesus as he came and dwell among us.

We are not justifying our celebration of Christmas in reflection of history, but in reflection of our faith in Jesus. It is true that the date is not true and the tradition is in pagan origin. But I think we have to remember that even the sons of the devil are celebrating Christmas because Jesus was born and that it will be negligent on our part that they celebrate Christ's birthday while we “His sons and daughters”, cannot even say “Thank You”.

Christmas is a Symbol of Hope.

When Christ was born, He gave hope to all humanity to be saved. A hope that cannot be taken away. “Jesus, hope of the nation”, this is how we call Jesus sometimes through our song.

Every time we commemorate Jesus' birth, we are also reminded of the greatest gift to mankind. I remember angels to be singing in heaven as they appeared before the shepherds. They themselves are celebrating because the hope for mankind to be reunited with God has come.

The wise men in Matthew 2:2 came to Bethlehem to see Jesus for they knew that the King of Jews was born for they have seen His star in the East and they came to worship Him. In verse 11, they saw the Child with his mother Mary, they worshiped the Child and gave Him gold, myrrh and frankincense. They knew that the Child is someone who must not be taken for-granted but of great importance.

The multitude of angels appeared to the shepherds singing “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men” (Luke 2:8-14).The peace and goodwill toward men here are not to be taken as a universal declaration of peace towards humanity, but it is a corollary of justification (Romans 5:1)

Simeon the prophet (Luke 2:25-35), recognized Jesus to be the “salvation of all peoples” (v.30-32).

Christmas is the Fulfillment of God's Plan.

Jesus came for our sake. He was born to die on a cross for our sins, and He was resurrected to give us forgiveness and eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). This is God's plan, for us to receive the light of his revelation to Gentiles (Luke 2:32).

When the wise men came to Jerusalem and after Herod have heard this “new King” of Israel, Herod gathered all the chief priests and scribes and ask them where is this Christ be born. Then they answered Herod that it will be in Bethlehem, quoting it from Micah 5:2).

Here we can see that these people knew that Christ will be born and that He will be the great shepherd of Israel. But instead of looking for Jesus to worship Him, Herod looked for Jesus to kill Him.
But then again, we can see how God moved towards the story. God protected the child by sending Joseph's family to Egypt. Even through the life of Jesus, the Father was with Him, and how in detailed, the prophecy of Christ has continuously been fulfilled.

Christmas is an Opportunity To Share About Christ.

Many of us does not take the opportunity to share about Christ during Christmas. For many of us, Christmas is the time for family reunions, family gatherings and parties. But how many of us was able to share other gospel during Christmas? Actually, Christmas is one of the best times to share the love of Christ.

Christmas is the celebration of our Savior's birth. From this, we can can see that there should be a connection of evangelism to Christmas. This is why we have to learn how to connect to it.

Aside from this, Christmas is the time of holidays where families get together. This is our opportunity then to share the gospel to them in groups. As for our experience, sometimes, the only reason that we are not able to share the gospel is because we did not even try to exert some efforts in reaching our love ones

May I ask you, do you want to see your parents, brothers, and sisters to go to hell? How about your children? Your grand children? If not, then why not share them about Jesus, about God. Don't wait that someone will come to share them the gospel. We should be the right people to share them the gospel because we are their families. We already have a relationship existing to them, and all we have to do is to pray that God will bless their hearts so that when you share the gospel, they are already prepared and is willing to hear God's word as God moved in them.

There are lots of ways on how we can share the gospel this Christmas. We can give gifts that has some verses in it. If we are not contented in giving them few verses, we can give more through text messages. If we are still not contented, then we can give the Bible.

Brothers and sisters, I think that the greatest gift that we can ever share to others is the gift of Jesus Christ, salvation. This gift last for eternity. A gift that will never decay nor wear out. This is the time to share it to them.

Conclusion

What does Christmas really mean to us? As for me, it means Jesus.