THE LIGHTS OF CHRISTMAS

THE LIGHTS OF CHRISTMAS

Ever been to the Carlsbad caverns, in New Mexico?  If not, put it on your bucket list.  It's quite amazing.  If you happen to get on a docent led tour, you might be lucky enough to participate in the 'lights out' program.  You stand in a group.  The docent turns out all the lights in the cavern.  There you can get some insight (strange word to use here) into what is meant by 'total darkness'.   Suddenly you are plunged into total dark upon darkness.  Except for everyone's body heat (a form of light) you get to experience total and complete darkness, absolute darkness that engulfed all the amazing rock formations for eons - until humans discovered them.  And then!  After 10 unsettling minutes or so, with people holding hands or clutching a railing - a single match is lit.  The darkness is overcome by the small light of a single match!   If one got stranded in a cave, or deep inside a mine (like the Chilean miners in 2010) the first thing one would seek for is 'light'.  Even the faintest light would be welcomed with cheers.

And yet, there is a type of darkness that a lot of people prefer.  Most people would be uncomfortable with total physical darkness - and yet, strange as it sounds, many choose to live in spiritual darkness.  Sadly, most people probably live in spiritual darkness all their lives.  Not knowing God, not knowing Jesus - and liking it that way.  Not experiencing that 'quickening' of their spirit, illumination from within that only God can provide.  John 3:19 and 20 says,  "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed."

But then - Christmas!  Isaiah 9:2 says, "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned." And the true meaning of Christmas is this:  'light has come into the world'.  This wonderful light shows us how our sins can be forgiven and how we can attain a new and wonderful ongoing relationship with God.  So Christmas came to be associated with light from the very beginning.  Since the actual date of Jesus' birth is not known (4-6 BC), Christmas came to be celebrated on (or near) the winter solstice, December 21-25th, when darkness was at its maximum.  After that, every new day would bring a few more minutes of light, carrying the world into spring.

What about all the lights we hang on our trees, our decorations, our houses, etc.?  Why do we do this - on CHRISTMAS?  We don't have generally have Easter lights, 4th of July lights, Thanksgiving day lights, Memorial day lights, etc.  But why on CHRISTMAS?  Because Jesus himself was the light that came into the world, dispelling spiritual darkness.  Jesus was the first Christmas light.   John 9:5 says,  "While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  John 1 says, "In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overpower it.  The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”  II Corinthians 4:6 says,  “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

The first actual physical Christmas light was the Star of Bethlehem.  The ‘wise-men’ (magi) were guided by the light of this heavenly event.  What was the star of Bethlehem?  Some say a comet, or a supernova, or a conjunction of planets, and some say it was an actual supernatural display.  Whatever it was, it lasted many months - the time needed for the magi to complete their trek from "the east" to Israel.  As time went on, the association of light with Christmas continued to grow and grow.  People began to use special candles at Christmas time.  Early Christians were persecuted for having worship gatherings, so a candle would be placed in the window to identify a place where worship would take place - not only at Christmas, but probably any time of year.  Then along came the Christmas tree, centuries later.  People began to put candles on their  trees.  The tradition of using small candles to light up the Christmas tree dates back to at least the middle of the fifteenth century.  And as time went on, the practice spread from one country to another.  And other ornaments were added, in endless variety.  

Then along came the electric Christmas light (complete history can be found on Wikipedia).  The first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree (1882) was the creation of a Mister Edward H. Johnson, an associate of inventor Thomas Edison. While Johnson was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, he had Christmas tree light bulbs made especially for himself.  On December 22, 1882, at Johnson’s home on Fifth Avenue in New York City, he proudly displayed his Christmas tree, hand-wired with 80 red, white, and blue electric incandescent light bulbs, about the size of golf balls.  Thus Johnson has become widely regarded as the ‘Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights’.  By 1900, businesses started stringing up Christmas lights behind their window displays, and in their retail stores and offices.  Christmas lights were usually too expensive for the average household, until about 1930, when electric Christmas lights became the common replacement for candles on Christmas trees.

Over a period of time, strings of Christmas lights found their way into in places other than Christmas trees.  Strings of lights soon adorned mantles and doorways inside homes, and were strung along the rafters, roof lines, and porch railings of homes and businesses.  In recent times, many city skyscrapers, bridges, buses and trolleys, lampposts, public parks and even animals are decorated with long strings of various colored lights.  And some folk light up their houses with thousands of lights, with flashing displays and accompanying music.

Now here's the real important thing about Christmas lights – the golden nugget in this discussion.  Every Christmas light, all of the millions and millions of them, radiate the light of Christ himself into a spiritually dark world.  Every Christmas light is a ‘little Jesus'.  The secular world, the commercial world, and people who aren't Christians, even people who belong to other religions, when they display Christmas lights are unknowingly shining the light of Jesus into the world.  There's a sweet irony here - that all the unbelievers out there who want to demote Christmas to 'happy holidays', and ‘Santa Claus’, and seek to get rid of public nativity scenes, still, when they display Christmas lights, are shining the light of Jesus out into the world.  Of course, they might say that Christmas lights represent the 'spirit of Christmas', 'hope for peace and harmony', 'Santa and his elves, reindeer and toys' - and so on.  But no amount of ‘secular spin’ can negate the true meaning of the Christmas light.  Without Jesus, there would be no Christmas lights.  And then there are those Christian people who refuse to celebrate Christmas, claiming it to be a 'pagan' holiday or some such thing.  They don't have a tree with lights, or lights on their houses.  They are really playing into the agenda of those who reject Jesus, by preventing the little lights of Christ from shining into the world.  But gladly, many many people love to display Christmas lights.  And some continue to keep their lights illuminated well into the New Year, often until January 6^th, which many Christian denominations celebrate as Epiphany, remembering that God the Son appeared in human flesh as Jesus the Christ – illumination that serves to bless all the coming days with the light of Christ.

Finally, if you’re a Christian, you too get to be a light, not only at Christmas, but all year long.  So let your light shine forth into a dark world.  Praise God.

THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

[This story is fiction, of course, and is a tad long. But if you stick with it, a wonderful conclusion awaits – a golden nugget.]

New York city resident Jim Nigh rode the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building. He carried a small cardboard box. At the top, he was allowed to throw the contents of the box over the side. He then rode the elevator down to the street level. He walked over to a spot on the sidewalk and found what he had hoped to find. A 100 piece jigsaw puzzle lay assembled. He looked at the image of two horses grazing in a pasture and he mumbled, “Perfect! Just like it’s supposed to be.”

A stranger came walking by and saw the puzzle. He walked over to Mr. Nigh and asked, “Uh, hey guy, what’s with the jigsaw puzzle? An odd place to work one, wouldn’t you say?”
     “I didn’t work it," said Nigh. "I took the pieces to the top of the Empire State Building here, and threw them over the side. They landed assembled, by themselves.”:
     “No way, man.”
     “I kid you not. That’s what happened.”
     “That’s impossible. Besides, puzzle pieces snap together, and you have to press the pieces into place.”
     “Not this kind of puzzle. There’s only 100 pieces and they just lay next to each other, without the need to snap into place.”
     The stranger, his lips twisted, just stared at Nigh. “Let me get this straight. You took the puzzle to the top of the building, threw it over the side, and it landed assembled? Like, right here? On the sidewalk? Come’ on, man. That’s not possible.”
     “On the contrary, Sir, it’s not impossible”
     “Well, maybe not impossible, but certainly improbable. Right?"
     “Right.”
     “OK, then. Let’s see you do it again. I’ll stay down here and watch, while you go up there and throw the pieces over the side again.”
     “My friend, I could do it every hour on the hour for the next million years, and it probably wouldn’t happen again. Just because it happened on the first try, doesn’t mean it will ever happen again in our lifetime.”
     “So then, what’s the point?” asked the stranger.
     “That highly improbable events happen every day.”
     “O…K. That is true. I’ll concede that,” said the stranger.   “Every now and then someone hits a big lottery - though you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning, or being elected President. But you’re right. Highly improbable events happen every day. But forgive me, I guess I’m a bit dense. I still don’t see the point of your little puzzle…drama.”
     Nigh grinned. “I want to suggest that even life itself could have arisen by a chance event. Highly improbable, true enough. But here we stand, talking about it – so the first life actually materialized, somewhere, sometime. Oh, oh, here comes the Channel 3 TV truck. And they’re stopping. They probably want to put me on the evening news. Anyway, do you see my point?”
     “Humph. I’ll think about it – but, sorry to say, I must reserve judgment. I think that life coming into existence by some kind of accident has worse odds than your puzzle drop thing.”
     The stranger walked away, shaking his head. Jim Nigh began running to the TV truck. But then, a young boy ran up, holding something in his hands. When Nigh saw what the boy had, he stopped, gritted his teeth and mumbled, “Oh, nuts.”

Bill Bright sat at his desk, his work computer displaying a detailed diagram of a nut and bolt. “This hardware should do the job,” he mumbled.
     Bill worked as part of a team designing automobiles for a big Detroit manufacturer. Thousands of precision parts had to be assembled in just the right way for the specified automobile to become a functioning vehicle. Put a part in the wrong place, and the car would not work right – maybe not at all. In fact, realizing this, Bill had set aside some time to think about just what an automobile actually is, so after some serious consideration and editing he wrote the following sentence on his grease board.

“A working automobile is a functioning integrated system of subsystems, powered by a source of energy, and controlled by information processes.”

‘Certainly it functions’ thought Bill. ‘If it didn’t function it would be, well, 'dead' – just a conglomeration of parts that accomplished nothing. And it’s certainly an integrated system. We have subsystems such as a motor, a transmission, wheels, dashboard, lights, a chassis, seats, and so forth – all put together in just the right way, so the end result is a functioning automobile. And the whole thing is powered by the energy contained in the gasoline that powers the engine. Also we have on-board computers, cams, valves, timing belts, and of course the driver too, all of which together constitutes the information processes that make the hardware do what it’s supposed to do.’

Jack Kaplan, a team-member of Bills’, walked up behind Bill and said, “Interesting expression on your grease board there, Bill. What’s the deal?”
     Bill answered, “I was just doing a bit of theorizing about what we do here, designing cars and trucks. We take the process through the basic steps of initial concept, followed by imagination and brainstorming, then a specification, a list of parts and finally assembly instructions. And we end up with a machine, which is defined by that very statement there on the grease board.”
      "I like it. That statement is quite comprehensive. And it would apply not only to cars, but to airplanes, computers, trains, ships, even things like microwave ovens, clocks, and refrigerators. Now here’s an interesting thing, Bill. It would also apply to you and me, and to the folks in that picture you have on your desk of your wife and daughter holding your pet kitty cat.”
     “Uh-oh. I think I know what you are going to say next,” said Bill, with a raise of his eyebrows. “You’re going to use this opportunity to transition into one of your pet subjects, 'Intelligent Design.'”
      Jack responded, “Well, it takes intelligence to design a machine like a car, or an airplane, etc. It stands to reason that the designer of the car or airplane, who is also a machine – a biological one, that is - is also designed. It seems odd that an engineer like you, who can design machines and is intimately familiar with the design process, would himself be produced by some random mindless process like spontaneous generation and Darwinian evolution. Does that make sense?”
     “Well, I see your point. But Intelligent Design sounds a lot like religion. As you know, Jack, me and my wife are not religious people. Besides, most of the big-shot scientists have declared evolution to be a ‘fact’. I don’t have enough expertise in the fields of biology and so forth to offer a challenge. So I tend to go along with them.”
     “The truth is, Bill, that most of the big-shot scientists who spout evolution are in fact scared to death of Intelligent Design. I can picture a pack of yelping drooling dogs running about with their tails between their legs, trying to escape this monster who is chasing them with a whip.”
     Bill gritted his teeth and said, “I’m sure the big-shot scientists would be extremely offended if they heard you characterize them with such a gross image.”
     Jack just grinned and said, “I admit it’s a little strong. But much of the science community  absolutely HATES Intelligent Design and they jump up and down and rail against it in their books, and in the press and on TV. They use terms like ‘bunkum’, ‘cop-out, ‘junk-science’, ‘pseudo-science’, and other more expletive language. They even call it ‘biblical creationism in disguise’ – which is a major misnomer because it’s neither biblical or in disguise. And it’s understandable that they hate the concept of Intelligent Design because it destroys their preferred worldviews such as atheism, agnosticism, and evolutionism. They even warn their children not to study it, fearing that it would contaminate their impressionable little minds. And Intelligent Design gets in the face of those who are indifferent and blank-faced towards anything to do with God, because it challenges them to notice his finger-prints evident in living things, and even the Earth itself. As for you, my friend, you are an engineer. For you not to believe in Intelligent Design is a serious inconsistency, since you know the design process up close and personal. You must accept that the chance of life molecules arising by random processes is highly improbable. There hasn’t been enough time since the origin of the universe for even one life molecule, like DNA or some complex protein, to get assembled by a chance process.”
     “But improbable things happen all the time, don’t they?” said Bill. “Remember the story on TV the other day? About the guy who threw a jigsaw puzzle from the top of the Empire State building, and have it land assembled on the sidewalk below? Improbable things do happen.”
     “Obviously you didn’t watch the whole story. That stunt proved to be a hoax. Yea, the guy threw the puzzle pieces over the side of the building all right, but the wind caught them and blew them hither and yon, just like you would expect. The guy had an accomplice below who laid an assembled puzzle on the sidewalk, and then the two tried to convince people along the street that the pieces assembled by chance. And when the TV guys came, some kid ran up with a bunch of pieces in his hand that he had found lying about. The kid wanted to know if they belonged to the puzzle on the ground. Poof! There went the stunt.”
     “No, I hadn’t heard about that,” said Bill, as he huffed a quick laugh. “Not surprising, really. But most scientists still maintain that life originated by normal chemical and physical imperatives and slowly evolved over millions of years into what we see today.”
      “Yea, I know what they claim. But Intelligent Design shoots all that down. The chances of life originating by a some random mindless process is even less than the puzzle thrown from the Empire State building falling assembled on the ground below. Life on this world, even the Earth itself, is the work of a master engineer. An engineer like us, Bill, but many orders of magnitude greater.”
     “Well…if I was a hot-shot scientist I could debate with you better. But here’s a question for you. Just who is your master engineer? What does Intelligent Design have to say about that?”
     “Nothing.”
     “Huh?”
     “That's right. Nothing. To identify the master engineer is a step into religion. In the Christian faith, which I belong to, the master engineer is the God of the Bible. As per Genesis 1:1, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.” But as for the secular science of Intelligent Design itself, it is quite incapable of identifying the designer.  For example, if you find an arrowhead in the forest, you know it's the product of an intelligent designer, but you have no idea who the designer is.”
     Bill just took a wistful look at the statement on his grease board. Then he asked, “What about Albert Einstein? What did he believe about all this? After all, he knew more about physics and science than all the present day hot-shots combined.”
     “Indeed. Sadly, a lot of talented scientists live their whole lives without opening their eyes. Not so with Albert Einstein. Very simply, he believed in Intelligent Design, but a limited version of it. Albert was convinced that the universe and all of its laws were the creation of a great mind. However, Albert did not believe in a personal creator God, such as Jehovah or Allah. And even though he claimed to respect Jesus, he did not accept him as the Son of God, raised from the dead, and so forth. Instead he was a determinist, and did not accept free will, or reward and punishment for the decisions one might make.”
     “A determinist, huh? That would imply that all the life on this world was the direct result of the laws of physics doing their thing. Right?”
     “So it would seem - but there’s a big problem with that. The laws of physics and chemistry, by themselves, could never design anything. They can only serve to be a backdrop, a ‘stage’, if you will, on which the actual design process can take place. The basic rule of machine design will always hold, namely, ‘it takes an engineer, who is a machine, to make another machine’. No one has ever observed an exception. But hey, buddy. I’m late for a meeting. But I must say that I like your definition of a machine. Hits the nail, it does. Goodbye for now.”
     “See you later, Jack. Good conversation.”  
     Jack walked off. Bill turned to face his grease board and took a long look at the statement on it and mumbled, “I guess I know more about Intelligent Design than I realize.”

So what’s the golden nugget in this story? This: we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14) “Made” – as in “designed by a master engineer”. Somebody once said, “God don’t make no junk.” You, me, and all human life was crafted by the Maker of All Things, and we are of great value, and we are part of His grand master plan.”

THE INCORRUPTIBLE WORD

THE INCORRUPTIBLE WORD

    Everything in this present world is, to use the biblical phrase from Romans 8, under the "bondage of corruption" - God's great curse because of human sin. The apostle Peter points out that the inorganic world is composed of "corruptible things”, such as silver and gold (1 Peter 1:18).  But so is the organic world, which is based altogether on "corruptible seed."  The term "corruptible" simply means "decaying" and this ever-present corruptibility is essentially what scientists have called the law of increasing entropy (also known in science as the “2^nd Law of Thermodynamics” (heat motion)).  The word “entropy” carries with it the idea of “disorder”.  This “tendency to disorder” can be observed in many everyday occurrences.

a)    A house or apartment can get messy and disordered all by itself.  It takes a planned effort, coupled with actual work, to reverse this tendency and bring the dwelling place back into a state of order again.

b)   A pile of bricks will never assemble itself into a brick house, by random actions such as wind, rain, earthquakes, cooling/heating, etc.  But a brick house will fall into a pile of bricks, given enough time, under the action of the same things.

c)    A transmission from your local TV station gradually gets contaminated with static and distortion, and eventually becomes unwatchable.  “Information” gets lost.  The party game of “telephone” is an illustration of how correct information can get overpowered and contaminated with noise. 

d)   A hot object cools off all by itself.  But an object never gets hotter all by itself.  Heat never flows from a cold object to a hot one, making the cold one colder and the hot one hotter, unless energy is pumped into the system.

e)    Any living thing ages and finally dies.

  So that’s the nature of this world.  But God has promised that he will create a new Earth one day.  Then, there will be no more curse (Revelation 22:3) “This corruptible must put on incorruption" (I Corinthians 15:53).  Those who will inhabit the new Earth will have been "begotten . . . again, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that does not fade not away” (1 Peter 1:3-4).  Everything in the new Earth, including you and I, will be incorruptible. 

     But to return to this present world in which we live: Albert Einstein once said that in all the known universe there is no known exception to the 2^nd law of thermodynamics.  Therefore, everything in the present Earth is corruptible.  But there is one exception! – an exception that Albert overlooked.  It is by this exception that we who were born under the bondage of corruption were translated into the incorruptible world of everlasting righteousness.  What is that exception?  The incorruptible word, the Holy scriptures.  The scriptures reveal the living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, through which a believer is born again, and is instructed in righteousness, and is sanctified (set apart).

(1 Peter 1:23) “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”

(Psalm 119-89,111,152) “Forever, 0 LORD, Thy word is settled in heaven. ... Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage forever...  Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them forever.”

"Heaven and earth shall pass away”, said the Lord Jesus, "but my words shall never pass away." (Matthew 24:35).

How indescribably precious is our Bible, the written Word of God!  The one and only thing in the entire world not subject to the laws of decay.

So what’s the golden nugget in this discussion?  This: know that when you hold your Bible in your hands, you are holding something that has within it a source of eternal power, an inner radiance that never diminishes.  Psalms 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.  A lamp that never dims, a light that never fails.  Our Bible has come down to us across the centuries, error free, in spite of endless copying, and hundreds of translations.  This, therefore, is wisdom: to hold the word of God in our hearts, to read it daily, to memorize those passages that speak to us most powerfully, and to let it be the compass of our lives.  Psalms 119:11 Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.  Only the never-decaying power of God’s word can protect us from the decaying power of sin and evil. 

In closing, ask yourself this question.  Do you personally cherish the privilege of reading the Bible?  Many people in this world have no such opportunity.  To read the Bible (assuming they can even find one in their language) is to risk persecution, even imprisonment or death.  To sincerely desire the pure milk of God’s word is one of the marks of the true Christian.  Anyone who does not thirst for its living water is overdue for a serious self-examination. We are like cups with holes in the bottom – we need to be constantly refilled, or we quickly run dry.  So if you are able, take your Bible, grasp it, lose yourself in its pages, drink deeply of its living water.  And you will grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Here’s a couple of extra golden nuggets.  If you want intimacy with God and you want to be assured of his presence and his closeness, then open your Bible to Psalms 139 and immerse yourself in this wonderful chapter.  You will sense that God is closer to you than your very breath.  Next, if you want to know what happens to you after you die, then immerse yourself in First Corinthians 15, and be assured that God has every intention to one day release you from the bondage of corruption that all of us experience in our earthly bodies, and remake us into something beautiful and incorruptible.  The incorruptible word can sustain us throughout our lives, and show us the way to eternal life.

A WORLD WITHOUT CHRISTMAS

A World Without Christmas

     All of us are so into Christmas, with the gift giving, the decorations, the church services, the panicky shopping, Santa Claus, flying reindeer, Christmas music, that we forget how really dependent we are on this celebration to add meaning to our lives.  It doesn’t matter if we are Christians, Jews, Muslims, or any other kind of folk, we tend to schedule our lives to mesh with it - we plan our gift giving (especially the kid’s gifts), our work schedules, our get-togethers and our eating arrangements.  It’s easy to get into the habit of Christmas, to take it for granted, even if it seems stressful at times.  But - let’s consider the question: What would the world be like if there was no Christmas?   Sometimes the best way to understand the necessity and importance of an event is to suppose that it never happened and then examine the implications.

     No Christmas?  Well then, what does that mean?  Perhaps it only means that Matthew and Luke left out the biblical nativity stories from their gospels, and little is actually known about the birth of Jesus, and so we just don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus at all.  Perhaps Christians only celebrate Easter.  Our lives would not be very much different.  Christian theology might be very much the same as it is now, except possibly our understanding of the importance of the virgin Mary might be different. 

     But a more extreme situation would be: Jesus never appeared, he was never born, and no one ever appeared on the scene of history that remotely resembled the individual the prophets of the biblical Old Testament spoke about.  God never tried to reach out to mankind in a close personal way.  Let’s take a few minutes to consider this question. 

Immediately we can say: Certainly the flow of history would have been vastly different. 

1) The Bible’s Old Testament, if it even existed, would be a collection of myths, legends, and the musings of dreamers.  The best part would be the various histories and the nice sentiments set forth in the Psalms and Proverbs, but the books would have no real power, because most of their prophecies would be about an event that was never to happen.  But if God had no intention of sending a Redeemer/Messiah, then there might not have been any prophecies at all, as God may never have favored the Jews, never intending to use them to bless all nations, and never spoke through any prophets.  People like Moses, Abraham, Isaiah, Daniel, David, and so forth may never have appeared on the pages of history.  And if the Old Testament was actually written as we have it today, with dozens of prophecies about a coming Redeemer, it would be totally discredited – because the anticipated Redeemer never showed up.

2) We would not have a New Testament.  The men and women who became disciples of Jesus would have stayed fishermen, tax collectors, carpenters, homemakers, etc.  Luke would have remained a doctor.  Paul would have remained a Pharisee (maybe there would be no Pharisees).  There would be no Christians to persecute.  The Roman Empire would never need to contend with that troublesome band of one-God worshipers that challenged the Caesars and rejected the Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses.

3) There would have been no Saint Augustine, no Martin Luther, no John Calvin, etc.   There would be no Christian churches, no hymns, no creeds, no sacraments as we know them today.

4) The secular elements of Christmas would be missing.  Santa Claus, reindeer, Christmas trees, Christmas gifts, greeting cards, Christmas music, eggnog and stockings on the fireplace – all these things would be unknown.

5)  The flow of the history of the western world would have been vastly different.  The barbarian tribes of Europe would never have been visited by Christian missionaries.  They would have remained steeped in idolatry and mystery religions.  Therefore, there would not be a United States, as we know it today.  No “Judeo-Christian” foundation on which to build a national constitution.  There would have been no Magna Carta, no declaration of independence.  What peoples would now live in North America and what sort of government they would have is anyone’s guess.  It’s possible that civilization as we know it might never have evolved.  No technology, no science, only tribes here and there ruled by warlords and chiefs.  Even this blog entry would not exist because the writer (P. Strom) and you the reader would never have been born -  because our ancestry and lineages would have followed paths quite unlike the paths that actually produced us. 

6)  Our knowledge of God, if we had any, would be very different.  “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” said Jesus.  He claimed to be our way to an understanding of God derived from a human image that was easy to comprehend.  Without Jesus, perhaps we would know God via some other revelation, creation perhaps, a different prophet perhaps, but possibly there would be no direct revelation at all, and we would be left mostly in the dark about God’s true nature.   Perhaps the idea of monotheism would have never developed, and people would still be worshiping the sun, the moon, the thunderstorm, and images of wood and stone.

7)  Our sins (if we even had such a concept) would be unforgiven, without any substitutionary redemption, without any way to have a hope of acceptance in the sight of the God we really don’t know very well anyway.  Perhaps there would be some other way of salvation, that we can’t conceive of, but that’s just a speculation.  People might just follow the musings of seers and oracles, who might claim to have revelations directly from ‘angels’ or extra-terrestrials.

8)  Any hope for life-after-death would be tenuous at best.  Death would hover over us like the sword of Damocles, a grim reality, a final end, a fall into the unknown, without any confidence that a loving God would be waiting to accept us into his presence.  Life would take on a ‘cast your fate to the winds’ character.  The most logical conclusion would be final and complete extinction.

9)  We would have no assurance that our prayers would be heard.  People, perhaps through desperation, might still try to get the attention of a god (who they aren’t even sure is actually there), and who may or may not care about individual people at a personal level.  

That’s just a few ideas about what the world would be like without Christmas.  There are certainly other consequences that one could think of.  But here’s the golden nugget in this discussion.  Simply this: ♫ Christmas really happened, ♫ and our season of celebration is founded upon real historical events.  And because of Christmas being real, we are here to celebrate an amazing fact.  That rather strange and odd fact that the Creator God of the universe chose to become one of us for a short time - and chose to be born in the humblest of circumstances - no trumpets, no white horses (that comes later), no attendance by the privileged and elite (they tried to kill him), no elaborate processions of fancy dressed people.  But in total fulfillment of around 400 (some say) biblical prophecies and inferences.  The setting?  Some simple shepherds that probably smelled like their sheep, a humble teen aged girl and her somewhat bewildered fiancé, hopefully a midwife or two, a cave that doubled as an animal stable, and a feeding trough for a cradle.  Also, there was an unusual star, a few angelic appearances, and a visit (a couple of years later) by some wise seekers from Iraq or Iran (more than one, but not necessarily the traditional three).  But the humble beginning, in an obscure location, revealed only to the commonest of people, was how God chose to reveal himself.  That way, the simple and humble folk of the world would have no trouble relating to him.  Only the proud and arrogant would disdain him. 

So here we all are: the beneficiaries of that very important event in the history of the world: Christmas.  Our very lives in this present world, and our relationships with God, are made possible by the reality of that event.  So we can share our fellowship, partake of delicious food, exchange gifts, decorate Christmas trees, put up model villages and electric train sets, listen to and sing beautiful music, attend Christmas church services, and just absorb the love and good vibes of the season.  And for the Christian, our lives take on purpose and meaning, and our destinies are sealed in the will and providence of a loving God.

And when we pray, we can be confident that a loving God cares about the details of our little lives, and is there to accept our worship and our gratitude, and who will weigh our requests in his balances.  Hopefully, this look at the world without Christmas helps all of us to appreciate how important and wonderful the celebration of this event really is.