The Light & Dark Side of Christmas
What is the significance of Christmas?
Is Christmas only about the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, or is there more to the story?” And is there a dark side to Christmas that we should all be aware of? The answer to THAT question may surprise you.
The Light
Christmas is the celebration and recognition that God sent Jesus to earth, in human form, born of a virgin, who grew up and became a man, so that we could recognize Him as prophesied before His arrival as stated in Isaiah 7:14 – “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Immanuel means “God with us.” God sent Jesus to earth so that we would NOT perish but have ETERNAL life!
We were introduced to sin through the actions of Adam who took a bite of the fruit that God told him not to do. And since we are descendants of Adam, every person born since then has inherited sin.
“…From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16 NASB)
That’s the problem we have today with sin…it alienates us from God and from each other. What Adam and Eve did is similar to what it’s like telling a child, “In this jar are chocolate chip cookies, but don’t take any to eat.” If they eat from the cookie jar, they have committed a sin as they have alienated themselves from you and broken the covenant of trust between each other. Now I know that’s an extreme example, and no, not all sins are equal in severity, but I think you get the point.
Any time that we sin against God, and any time that we sin against each other, there is an alienation, a breaking of the covenant of trust, between God and us, or between each other on earth.
And remember, all sin must be paid for because the Bible tells us so. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
The Dark
The dark side of Christmas is teaching the myth of Santa Claus to young children, instead of what the true meaning of Christmas really is. The myth actually teaches children how to lie once they find out that the Santa Claus myth is a lie. The myth also teaches children that if they are good, they will be rewarded with toys and gifts when they wake up the next morning; if they are bad, they won’t have any presents. That myth teaching is exactly opposite of what the Bible teaches. You can’t be good enough to get to heaven, and you can’t be bad enough to stay out of heaven, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and God has preordained you to be saved before the earth was formed.
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Blessings to you and your loved ones during this Christmas season,
Pastor John Haggard