What is Christmas all about? Increasingly Christmas is getting buried under consumerism, or worse, banished out of a fear of talking about God. It begs the question of why we bother any longer.
The fact that you are reading this tells me that you are looking for more than ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Ho, Ho Ho’. You’re a person who wants to know the truth.
In the Bible, Luke tells us about an incident with the apostle Paul when he was visiting Athens, Greece. Walking around among all the religious shrines to all the different gods and goddesses people believed in, he spots a stone altar which has the words ‘To AN UNKNOWN GOD’ inscribed on it. Just in case they had missed out some deity, they set up this one. Funny, but so true.
Is that you? Do you ‘do’ a bit of religion just to cover your bases – in case it all happens to be true. You really don’t know what you believe, but a bit of church here or the odd prayer there is a good insurance policy.
I get that. A bit of this, and that, to keep things right. The trouble is that there are lots of options, and it can all get a bit confusing after a while. For example, which religions or God’s should you put the most effort into?
Christmastime solves this dilemma for us. If St Paul were writing this, he would say, “What you worship as unknown, I announce to you.” Paul was confident that he knew who this unknown God was, that he wanted to tell everyone about him.
This is what Christmas is really about. This is the time we can tell everyone that that the unknown is now known. His name is Jesus the Christ.