The Sparkle of Christmas

Do you set up Christmas decorations and illuminations for the Christmas season?

For me at this time of year it is beautiful to see all the lights outside houses on a drive home through town – and it is great to be able to bring sparkle to the season of darkening December.

We have got coloured lights decorating the outside of our house, but these photos are of houses in our neighbourhood where they have done a more impressive job than me.

People are bringing Christmas cheer to their lives, but what is everyone actually celebrating?

Many people are celebrating the days off work which come at this time of year and the holiday mood of the season, but who is actually celebrating the Christ of Christmas? And what are people missing out on if they don't have enough of a connection with this Christ to celebrate him?

The name of the baby was Yeshua – or in English, Jesus. But Christ was his title – meaning the Saviour, or another word we also use in English, the Messiah. And the name Yeshua itself means Salvation: so whereas we understand if a baby might be born with the name Prince George, for example, we miss out on the meaning of this baby's name: Saviour Salvation.

Actually the baby Yeshua was born with the right to be a King, but he didn't grow up in a human royal family. And he chose in his life not to follow the path of establishing a human kingdom, because he had a bigger endgame in sight.

This Yeshua, who in nature was fully God as well as fully human, conceived in situ in a human womb by God himself as the father, became vulnerable. God in this way chose to make himself vulnerable to all human temptations.

In heaven God cannot be tempted by anything and cannot be beaten by anyone. When angels in his presence rebelled against God they in fact stood no chance, and they were thrown out of heaven, to become 'fallen' angels. But by becoming God-in-a-baby and growing up as God-in-a-human, God actually made himself beatable. Not just in the sense of the way his body was beaten up, but in the sense of how his mission would have been defeated if he had given in to any single one of the temptations he faced. This is an incredible state of vulnerability for God himself and it is in grasping even a small part of this overwhelming truth that we can celebrate Christmas.

Some people are actually stubborn enough not to be interested in the life of Jesus, even if they have heard about his birth. It is not everyone whose birth is announced by angels taking over the sky – so we should be interested in the rest of his life too. The birth was only the beginning: firstly Jesus grew up without giving in to any single temptation, and then in the power of the Holy Spirit began to carry out miracles and healings to bring life and restoration to people.

These miracles are symbolic of the life and restoration he can still bring to us now – and that is why any human being is missing out if they do not have a connection with Jesus himself, as opposed to just an interest in the story of his birth.

When Jesus carried out miracles in his human life on earth, he specifically told the healed and the restored that it was their faith that made them well. And we do not need to see Jesus walking and talking in order to have faith in him – we can have faith in him now, even 2000 years later, and this faith can make us healed and restored. Not only that, but faith in him brings us life – a life beyond this world of human kingdoms, which will be a life in a bigger and better kingdom which is ruled in peace and justice in all the ways God intended, where God's will is done – as it is in heaven.

Right up to the end of his life, Jesus continued to resist every temptation - even when he felt the pain of what was inflicted upon his human body. In the whole of his earthly life, his entire mission was on the line - because he was vulnerable to temptation. But he achieved his victory, without ever giving in: and it was not his mission to avoid death, but to defeat death.

In a human body, Jesus did die - but he was resurrected in a body which was fit for heavenly living. And he points the way for us, because if we hold on to him in our faith, we will be joined to him in a resurrection of our own, to live with him beyond this world.

This is one reason why Jesus is called 'the Light of the World' - because he lights up our path to a connection with God, and a connection to a state of life that we know deep down is 'the way it is meant to be'.

We don't need to see God himself - but we need to 'see the light' and it is through faith in Jesus that we can understand the meaning of his name Salvation, and we can see beyond the temptations and kingdoms of this world. This light is the true meaning of what all Christmas lights and decorations symbolise - and this is what the bright shining of the angels in the Bethlehem skies were announcing.

About Dan's blogs:

I don't expect everyone to agree with everything I write - but hopefully my blogs do give readers something to think about.

Throughout my own life I have found that it is good to be challenged on the views I have held at different times, and the worldview that I now hold: we cannot hold to strong and effective values if these do not have solid foundations. So one part of the reason for my blogs is to help people examine why they hold the values and views that they have. This is a part of my training as a Life Coach, which is to enable clients to see ways in which their lives align with their own values and ways in which they don't - not to try to persuade others to align themselves to the Life Coach's worldview.

After all, no one should want to make the world full of clones of themselves - that would remove all the beauty of the diversity which is the hallmark of our incredible mind-blowing and unfathomable universe.