If you like live trees, it needs to be done before the needles turn brown, and it sheds faster than you can clean. This is emblematic of our world today. Everything is temporary. It drives our economy, either the greedy desires that discard the old for new with the commercials that fuel them or the designs for things to need replacement in a few years or less.
This is where Christmas should be different. Christmas does not need to be so vaporous. Indeed, Christmas in a secular sense is temporary, but true Christmas is always present. Truly Christmas is about something more than evergreens, presents and a red-suited man in desperate need of a gym membership. It is about Jesus. The rest is fluff that has been added on. None were added for bad reasons, though some have been corrupted for gain. So why should Christmas last?
The simplest way of knowing the true Christmas never goes is that you never throw away a child. Christmas is about Jesus Christ being born. God Incarnate. Jesus, whose death and resurrection we will remember in early April this year. Christmas is about his birth. Think of the many Christmas carols about the child in a manger or a baby born. This is the Christmas message. It just gets lost behind the loud, flashy commercials.
Few of the gifts will make a big change in your life. I can count on one hand the number of Christmas gifts that have lasted more than a year. I can tell you that Jesus has made a difference in my life that continues to this day. The forgiveness that comes through accepting Him as saviour is beyond compare. It starts people on a path to change that matters and lasts. As you read this you will be closing in quickly on the average day people give up New-Year resolutions. When you accept Jesus as your saviour, it changes the way you look at life, and that alters everything. As it is written, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV)
The time everyone thinks of starting change has come and gone. The best change that can happen centers on Jesus. It is a change that matters. It is a change that has meaning and a future. It is a change that brings hope in a world that runs short of hope. A hope in the future, when Jesus returns. A hope for justice that comes from God. A hope in the restoration of our relationship with God. A gift of hope, by becoming a new creation in Christ, is better than any wrapped treasure.
Rev. Rick Shott, Nokomis Baptist Church
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Disclaimer: opinions expressed are those of the writer.
