Just about everyone in our country will celebrate Christmas this year, but not all for the same reason.  For some it is the peak time of the year for their business.  For some it is time for a few days off; a break from work.  For some it is the time to get what you want.  Many will celebrate with lights, decorations, and seasonal music. Many will celebrate with good eating and family.  For some it is all about baby Jesus, the shepherds and wise men. The manger scene will be the focal point for many religious people.

Each of these scenes carry with them various motives for celebrating Christmas.  For some it is recreating the many fond memories of Christmas with family.  It is sentimentality.  For some it is as basic as getting stuff.  It is all about me!  For some it is all about the music of Christmas, not necessarily Christian music.  It is emotion.  For some it is the setting, a white Christmas.  It is an ideal.  For many it is about feeling good.  It is giving and helping others.

Christmas can consist of all these things, but in reality, it is a time of revelation and of sobriety.  It is a time to remember that God, our Creator, clothed Himself with humanity in order that He might redeem us from our sin by His substitutionary* death, burial and resurrection.  It took a perfect life to fulfill the demands of the law and to satisfy the justice of God.  He provided this Himself in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man.

Humanity somehow misses this revelation.  We cannot get past the manger scene which rests in the shadow of the cross.

*Substitute – One that takes the place of another.