As you grow up your ideas about Christmas undergo a kind of metamorphosis. For example, when I was in grade school the most transcendent thing I could think of was Santa Claus, his reindeer, and the North Pole. I would spend weeks strategically constructing a wish-list of necessities that promised to make my life a little more fun and enjoyable. My list contained things like Legos, matchbox cars, action figures, models, toy trains, telescopes and video games.
In those years, my favorite books to read were the K’s Merchandise and Sears catalogs, the oddest kid in school was a Jewish boy who didn’t celebrate Christmas, and my one ambition was to accumulate more stuff than the year before. Every family member, including my parents, my grandparents, my brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, all became the means of making my wish-list a reality. It wasn’t that my parents or church didn’t talk about Jesus. He just took a back seat to the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season.
As we mature, Christmas becomes mostly about relationships.
But in time, the material pull of Christmas weakens and a deeper meaning emerges. Christmas becomes mostly about relationships. You realize that every gift is an expression of someone else’s love and thoughtfulness. Gratitude floods your heart and more than anything else you want to hold onto the moment and make it eternal. So we snap pictures and shoot video to forever frame all the smiles and laughter and excitement and joy. And we somberly remember those who for whatever reason, will not be joining with us.
This afternoon I am going to a funeral visitation. A fellow pastor who I have known for years lost his wife this past week to lung cancer. They just learned of the severity of his wife’s illness weeks earlier. They asked friends and family to pray for extra time. Their son was going to be graduating this spring from high school and their daughter was set to be married this summer. Unfortunately, she didn’t even make it past Thanksgiving. They wanted months, but they got weeks.
I don’t want to start things off too heavy this morning, but we all reach a point where we would give up anything to have those we love for even one more Christmas. And this desire understandably takes center stage most every Christmas.
In time, we look for something eternal and everlasting.
It is hard to imagine a deeper meaning to Christmas than family relationships. But in time, we do look deeper. We look for something eternal and everlasting. We realize that there isn’t anything eternal or everlasting about material things and we know that there isn’t anything eternal and everlasting about this life’s relationships either.
Concerning material things Jesus indicates their limitations in Matthew 5:20 (NIV). "...moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal." Believe me, I know! I spent part of Thanksgiving cleaning my in-laws' basement. We threw away over thirty bags of trash. The bags were full of things that were once new and valuable and cutting edge but that have since rusted, mildewed, or been broken.
Concerning our lives Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16 (NIV), "outwardly we are wasting away." One quick glance at the photo album confirms Paul’s observation. And our families, God bless them, have a way of pointing this truth out also. "Is that a gray hair I see?"
The deeper meaning of Christmas is found in relationship with Jesus Christ.
The deeper meaning of Christmas that we seek is found beyond these things. It is found in relationship with our life-giving Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This Christmas we would do well to remember that Jesus is the very source and essence of life. In John 5:26 (NIV) Jesus says of himself, "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself."
The Son has life in himself. We will talk more about this in a moment. But if it is life that we value more than anything else, and if it is life that we want to hold onto, and if we are truly on a quest for something eternal and everlasting, then we must realize that Jesus is the key to unlocking life. Jesus has life in himself!
Consider the introductory words of the gospel of John. In John 1:1-5 (NIV) we read the following description of Jesus Christ. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."
Jesus has life in himself.
Who is Jesus? Jesus is the life-giving agent through which this world and our lives came into existence. Through Jesus, God breathed life into his creation. Through Jesus, God created you and me to live. He allowed us to have life.
The Son Jesus has life in himself. Through him all things were made. But without him nothing was made that has been made. Apart from Jesus Christ it is impossible for us to even have life. Remove the Son from the equation and life ceases to exist or be possible.
Look at what Colossians 1:15-18 (NIV) says, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Our life-giving Lord and Savior is the indispensable element in the formula of creation. Not only is he the creator and source, but he is also the sustainer. Remove Jesus and our whole world unravels. Your life and my life cease to exist and be possible.
I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but isn’t it funny how we go to such great lengths every year to maximize the thrill and experience of Christmas, but without including Christ? If this whole world was created and is sustained by the life-giving presence of Jesus Christ, then how much more must your life and my life be sustained by the One who, "has life in himself." Could it be that Christmas is empty because we are trying to fill it with the material and temporal at the expense of the eternal and transcendent?
The greatest gift that we can receive for ourselves this Christmas is to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ. And the greatest gift we can offer to others is to call them into a relationship with our life-giving Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
There is an interesting statement made about Jesus in John 1:5 (NIV). We are told, "In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." Our world does not realize that Jesus has life in himself. Our world assumes that this life on earth is the only life there is. To our world, nothing is eternal and everlasting. When Jesus was on earth his primary mission was to correct this false assumption.
In the gospel of John Jesus took every opportunity to teach people like us about life. In John 3:16 (NIV) Jesus met with Nicodemus, a Jewish leader, at night. Jesus told him, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
In John 4 Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman who was an outcast in her community. She was well-known for her evil deeds and adulterous lifestyle. The woman was on the outskirts of town drawing water out of a well. Jesus approaches her and asks her for a drink of water. But she declines saying in John 4:9-13 (NIV), " 'You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.' 'Sir', the woman said, 'you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?' Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
In both encounters Jesus promises life. He is saying, "There is something more. You can have eternal life. You can have living water and never thirst again."
Some people believed that Jesus had life in himself, but some did not.
As you can imagine, some people believed Jesus had life in himself, but some didn’t. So in the gospel of John Jesus appears to intensify his ministry a bit. Not only does he declare that he has life in himself, but he demonstrates his power over life as well. In John 4:49 (NIV) a royal official searches Jesus out and begs Jesus to heal his son who was lying at home deathly ill. "Sir, come down before my child dies." There isn’t much commentary about the matter. Jesus simply looks at the man in John 4:50 (NIV) and says, "You may go. Your son will live." The Bible says that the official took Jesus at his word, departed, and his son was healed that very same hour.
In John 5 Jesus encounters the paralytic man near the pool of Bethesda. A great number of disabled people gathered there because they believed an angel stirred the water. They believed that whoever got into the water first would be healed. The paralytic man had been sitting near that pool for thirty eight years, but was physically unable to get into the waters. Someone would always go down ahead of him.
In John 5:8 (NIV) Jesus confronts the man and says, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." John 5:9 (NIV) says, "At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked." Obviously, people were starting to connect the dots. Crowds began following Jesus everywhere, demanding miraculous signs. Jesus could obviously heal. Of course, Jesus tempered their curiosity with more teaching and a call to commitment.
After miraculously feeding the five thousand Jesus teaches the crowds in John 6:47-52 (NIV), "I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
After suffering some grumbling Jesus sharpens his point in John 6:53-58 (NIV). "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
The Jews thought that Jesus was suggesting that they engage in cannibalism. But instead, Jesus was vividly amplifying the fact that he himself is the source of life. Jesus is the living bread that comes down from the living father in heaven. Jesus alone was their only hope for everlasting life. They could eat and live forever or they could go refuse Christ and die. The choice was theirs and the same choice is ours today.
Will Christmas be eternal and transcendent? Or will it signal another closing chapter?
After all he did, a number of people still did not believe in Jesus. Many even deserted him. But in John 11 one of Jesus' close friends named Lazarus became ill. When Jesus learned of his illness, he promised that Lazarus' sickness would not end in death. But instead of rushing back to heal Lazarus, Jesus stayed where he was for a while. In the meantime, while Jesus tarried, Lazarus died. His family gathered and mourned, there was a funeral, he was wrapped in a burial cloth, laid in a tomb, and his body began decomposing. Four days after being laid in the tomb, Jesus shows up to check on Lazarus. The family is pleased to see Jesus, but clearly there are mixed emotions.
Lazarus' sister Martha tells Jesus in John 11:21-22 (NIV), "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." In the background, people were murmuring, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
Despite the mixed reception, Jesus promises that Lazarus will rise again. In John 11:25-26 (NIV) Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."
A short time later Jesus goes to Lazarus' tomb. In John 11:43 (NIV) at Lazarus' tomb Jesus has the stone rolled away and he calls out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" We all know the rest of the story. Lazarus came out with his hands and feet wrapped in strips of linen and a cloth around his face. And Jesus tells Lazarus' family in John 11:44 (NIV), "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."
Jesus demonstrated power over life and death.
To us, this may just be a nice little Bible story, but this event alone shook Jerusalem and the religious establishment to the core. Jesus didn’t just claim to have the power over life and death; he demonstrated it.
On the eve of his crucifixion in John 14:1-6 (NIV), Jesus tells his disciples, " 'Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.' Thomas said to him, 'Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?' Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' "
How do we receive the life of Jesus Christ himself this Christmas?
For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the son to have life in himself. How do we receive the life of Jesus Christ this Christmas and make it our own? In John 5:24 (NIV) Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life."
Perhaps there is another message that you would like to hear this Christmas. In time, the message you will need to hear for yourself as much as for anyone else is that there is eternal life in God’s one and only son, Jesus Christ. And that life can be secured for eternity, through faith.
You know, even after seeing Lazarus' empty tomb, some still doubted. Like Thomas. Those who doubted soon found yet another compelling reason to believe in Christ. In a short time another tomb near Jerusalem was discovered empty. The one who claimed to be the resurrection and the life rose on the third day. The one who claimed to have life in himself and claimed to know the way to the Father, ascended into heaven to be at the Father’s side.
For the rest of us, we have the message of Christmas and a simple invitation to receive Christ’s life through faith. How will you respond?