We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  We are familiar with this song and can still hear the song played occasionally during the holiday season.  We can often be reminded of the reason for the season, this takes us beyond the fact we are going to be buying gifts and spending time with family.  To have a Merry Christmas is not simply a hope the relatives will be able gather and get along well during the holidays.  To have a Merry Christmas is to remember what happened on the first Christmas, Jesus was born.

Luke 2:4-7  So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Jesus started out as a babe in humble settings, God wants us to know He is willing to meet us in humble settings.  God wants to meet us where we are, He did not have Jesus born in a palace so we could remember He comes from true royalty.

Luke 2:8-15 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.   An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.   But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.   Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.   This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”   Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”   When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

The shepherds traveled to see Jesus, they left their fields and went to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  We wish a Merry Christmas in remembering what happened the first Christmas the shepherds heard the angels and knew Jesus’ birth was a wonderful event, the Savior had been born.  We often hope to just have a happy holiday.  We can get so caught up in the traditions we forget why we are celebrating.

Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

God wants us to love Him with all our heart, soul and mind not so we will stay focused.  God wants us to love Him in this manner because this love  is a reflection of how God loves us.  But a reflection is never as wonderful as what is being reflected.

We are truly celebrating God’s love for us.  We are celebrating something so much more wondrous event of Jesus being born and being here on earth with us.  We are celebrating that God would go to such lengths to show us love, God reaches down to us with such love.  God reaching down to us does not imply He is so far removed from us that He has to reach down.   As a father reaches down to hold the hand of a small child to comfort the child,  God reached down with the birth of  Jesus to comfort us in our pain and grief and struggling.  This is a fallen world and we would have no hope to find our own way to save ourselves.

1 John 4:7-12  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

God loves us, we can struggle with this love since we have experienced so many kinds of love in our lives.  God loves us with a deep satisfying love. We truly have a Merry Christmas when we joyously remember Christ’s birth goes beyond the wondrous birth of a little baby and includes the promise God made about the future in God’s life the death and resurrection.

My hope is you joyously reflect and remember the wonderful event of the birth of our Savior who rose from the dead and now wants a personal relationship with you.

As we wish others a Merry Christmas we can hold a prayer in our heart that the person we are saying this to will have a joyous time remembering Christ’s birth is celebrated at this time.  We can wish they also will come to have a deeper relationship with God.

Written and posted by Joyce E Poggensee

Verses referenced:Luke 2:4-15,  Mark 12:30, 1 John 4:7-12