Happy New Year! I hope you had a good 2017. If not, we have a brand new year to look forward to. And since it’s the new year, I thought I’d share a story with you that happened recently.

On the day before Christmas Eve, last week, my son and I spent four hours wrapping gifts for people at a popular book store. It was a fundraiser for my son’s senior class. Since, it was for my son, he needed to be there. But like most teenage boys, his skills at wrapping presents leave something to be desired. I told him I would do the wrapping, as long as he helped me with handing me scissors or tape, or pressing his finger on the ribbon, so I could tie a knot. He agreed, so off we went to the bookstore, to spend the afternoon wrapping.

We didn’t have a crowd or line to get gifts wrapped, but suddenly, we did. A young girl needed to get some gifts wrapped. While she waited, three more people got in line behind her. The guy right behind the girl, zeroed in on my son. He was a tall guy and very good looking. He had perfect hair, and he stood there, staring down my son. I was chit chatting with the girl I was wrapping presents for, but I was keenly aware of this guy behind her, just staring at my son. It made me nervous. There was something about his presence. It was a foreboding feeling. Behind him, was an older woman in a wheelchair, with her daughter standing beside her.

I finished wrapping the girl’s presents, then, the good looking guy stepped up. He had one book in his hand, without a book cover. That was odd, but his behavior was even odder. The first thing he said was, “How old is T______?” He had used my son’s name, though he didn’t know him. I turned to my son and said, “How old are you?”

My son answered and said he was seventeen. When he heard that, the man got really angry. He proceeded to verbally criticize my son. He said he’d been standing there, watching my son. Well obviously, I was quite aware of his staring. He told my son he’d never seen anyone so lazy in his entire life. He told my son he would never get anywhere in life, if he kept that up. I didn’t know what to say, I was flabbergasted. My son held up an “okay” sign and didn’t say anything. I could smell alcohol on the man’s breath. I asked the man if he wanted any ribbon or a name tag. He said no, then abruptly left.

The older woman in the wheelchair came up to our table and told us how weird the guy was. I felt a sense of relief: that he was gone, and this woman had noticed how strange the man was. The daughter said she did gift wrapping years ago when she was in high school and remembers her mom doing most of the work, because she couldn’t wrap very well. I looked at this woman, grateful for her presence. She was older and overweight. Her hair was kind of scraggly, but she exuded warmth and peace. A contrast to the good looking guy with the perfect hair and sneering criticisms for my son.

We live in a mad, mad world and it’s only going to get worse. I don’t like to think why this man was staring down my son, but I’m sure you can imagine. As we enter into a new year, be careful Christian. The enemy it out to “seek whom he can devour.” He will stop at nothing, to bring believers down. God warns us over and over in scripture, to be aware of the enemy and know the believer has protection. But be aware. Fight the good fight. Don’t bury your head in the sand and don’t put on your rose colored glasses. This is a war, people, be ready.

After our lady in the wheelchair left, I turned to my son. He pointed to the trash can we had sitting next to us. There, on the top of the trash, was the book cover to the book I had wrapped for the “creep.” The creep had stolen the book and made me wrap it so he could walk out the door with it! Ugh!

Merry Christmas! I hope all of you are having a merry Christmas. As I think of this Christmas season, I am grateful for the birth of Jesus Christ, who came to this earth to sacrifice His life, for me. I’ve decided to post a song that epitomizes the true Christmas season. Enjoy!

What’s your favorite Christmas present? Do you remember? One of my most favorite Christmas gifts was a pair of ice skates. I wanted ice skates so badly. Every winter, we had tons of places to skate from little puddles to a big pond just outside of town. I suspected I had gotten the skates, because there was a big box under the tree that looked big enough to contain a pair of skates. On Christmas morning, I tore open the package, and there was the big box. I opened the box, and there were a pair of pristine, white skates. The blades were a shiny steel. And the skates were so white. These were brand spanking new. I was so happy I wanted to go right outside, then and there to try them out. I loved those skates. I used them every chance I got. I would go outside for hours on end to skate, even when my toes got numb from the cold. I didn’t care. I loved skating. I wasn’t even very good at it, but I loved doing it. At least I could stay upright on them.

I love the reason for Christmas. God sent the greatest gift to mankind, the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. He was sent to this planet, as a baby. Imagine that. The very God of the universe, entering the planet as a small helpless baby. You can’t get more vulnerable than that. And there wasn’t even any fanfare. He wasn’t placed in a golden bassinet, lined with silk bedding. After He was born, He was placed in a stinking manger. A feeding trough! A place where animals eat hay out of. A place where they slobber while they consume the hay.

And His sole purpose for coming here, was to die. He was going to offer His life, His body as a sacrifice for our sins. The perfect lamb of God, came to be sacrificed for us! What a gift!

Ever try and give a gift to someone and they try and pay you back for it? Hopefully you haven’t. The best thing to do when you receive a gift is to just take it and say thank you. So often than not, people want to earn their salvation. They don’t want to accept the free gift God offers us, they want to do something for it. Pay it back. Work for it. C’mon people! It’s a gift. Take it! Accept it!

So often, we try and create a perfect Christmas and fail miserably. I can remember many Christmases that went haywire and were far from perfect. I don’t know how many times someone was sick on Christmas. One Christmas season hepatitis went through our town. I didn’t get it, but my brother and sister did. So I got to have a gift of a big, fat shot. Merry Christmas to me! I remember before we had kids, my husband and I were staying with my sister-in-law for Christmas. My husband brought pink eye to my sister-in-law and she returned his gift with a nice case of strep throat. I spent as much time as I could, away from them that Christmas.

Christmas is a time to celebrate the greatest gift given to mankind, Jesus Christ. As you wrap presents for your loved ones. As you think about each of the gifts you’ve bought and hope the recipient is as excited about it as you are giving it. Don’t worry about perfection for Christmas. So, someone gets sick. Or maybe your oven breaks while you’re attempting to cook a twenty-four pound turkey. Your two year old wakes up with a 101 fever (not that I have experience with that). Just think about the perfect gift of all, Jesus Christ as Savior of the world. Only in Jesus, will you find the perfect gift-His life.

Luke 2:8-20 “In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them: and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them,”Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherd began saying to one another, “let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. When they had seen this, they made known the statement which were told them about this child. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.”

Christmas is rich with symbolism. God had sent His only Son to be born from a virgin. When Christ was born, angels came and scared some shepherds spitless. What would you do, if a bunch of angels showed up talking to you? Logically, they were afraid. But the angel calmed them down and sent them to go see the Christ. So they did, and left, praising God for all they had heard and seen.

Why shepherds? Why did angels come to shepherds who were just out, minding their own business, watching over their sheep. I believe, God was continuing a narrative He had begun with Israel a long time ago.

God had the people of Israel make a sin offering by sacrificing a sheep. They had to go find a spotless lamb, then sacrifice him, for the temporary cleansing of the people’s sins. But this was only temporary. They had to keep doing it. This was the story, God was telling them. One day a lamb would come and sacrifice His life for the sins of all people for all time. He would be the spotless lamb. He would be sinless. He would be the Savior of the world.

As Jesus Christ entered the world, the angels came to the shepherds to let them know that it had begun. The Lamb, they had been looking for, had come. The Savior of the world, had come. He’d arrived into the world as every person does, through birth. The shepherds were told, because they were shepherds. They knew sheep. It would be a announcement to the world, the ultimate lamb has arrived! Why shepherds? Because Jesus was the lamb. He was the ultimate lamb.

God continues this narrative, when John the Baptist announces Jesus: “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” John 1:29

And when that time came, for Jesus Christ to offer His life as an atonement or our sins, He walked through the Pratorium, where they brought all sheep through, to be sacrificed. He followed that exact same path all sheep walk, just before they are sacrificed.

Isaiah 53:7 “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth, Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before it’s shearers, so He did not open His mouth.”

Those shepherds were introduced to the ultimate Lamb of God, the Savior of the world. They knew sheep. And God was telling them, here was the last and only lamb, which WILL take away the sins of this world. And they went away rejoicing and praising God. Let’s remember why we celebrate this Christmas season and let’s all rejoice, for the Lamb of God has come and He took away the sins of the world! Amen.

There’s a war on Christmas. Did you know that? There are those in the world who hate Christmas and don’t want anyone else celebrating.

I ran into a group like this, a few years ago. A women was in my Bible study group. I sensed that something was amiss with this woman, but I didn’t quite know what it was. She would never use the name Jesus. She only called Him Yeshua, but only rarely. She preferred to talk about the Father and not Jesus. We were studying the book of Acts that year. She would bring up a verse, during our small group time, then twist it a bit, saying the Hebrew interpretation was such and such. That was odd. The New Testament was never written in Hebrew, it was written in Greek.

The oddity of what this woman believed came full force at Christmas time. Every year in our Bible study we had a big Christmas tea. I had to contact each member of our small group to see if they would be attending and get a head count. Before it was even December, this woman emailed me and said she WOULD NOT be attending the tea. But she said it in such a way, I got a sense that it didn’t just not fit her schedule, she was making a stand. Making a stand AGAINST the tea. I called her and she asked me if I got her email. I said yes. She then restated what she had said in the email that she WOULD NOT be going to the Christmas tea. I said I knew that, because she had sent the email. I could tell she wanted to tell me why she WOULD NOT be going to the tea. I took the bait.

I asked her why she couldn’t attend the tea. She went for it. Christmas, according to her, was a pagan holiday. Now that she was studying Acts, she realized how important it was not to dabble in anything pagan. As a Christian, she just couldn’t be part of that pagan holiday, Christmas. I got off the phone with her feeling accused and… pagan. I was a Christian. And I loved celebrating Christmas. It’s one of the few holidays that means anything. Christmas and Easter, the two celebrations that are totally Christian based. We celebrate Christmas because Jesus came into the world to grow up, and sacrifice His life for the sins of the world. What an awesome thing to celebrate! Christmas is hope. But this woman was saying it was pagan. Pagan!!! And I, being a Christian, was celebrating a pagan holiday! According to this woman, I needed forgiveness for committing such an atrocious sin.

The woman touched on a few reasons for not celebrating Christmas. We don’t know the actual day Jesus was born. Well that’s true, but we know He was born. Pick a day, any day, and let’s celebrate! She said that Christmas was close to the pagan Roman holiday called Saturnalia. Well that’s true too. But those of us who celebrate Christmas don’t know anything about Saturnalia, we are celebrating Christ’s birth.

Jesus, coming into the world, IS a time to celebrate. We Christians CAN celebrate. It’s one of two holidays we should celebrate. Yes, we don’t actually know when Jesus was born. But we can still celebrate. God described a celebration for Christ’s birth. Some wise men from far away, came to celebrate and they brought gifts. Some angels showed up to some shepherds and terrified them. The angels told the shepherds to go check out the newborn King. This was a celebration. And they did.

By the end of the year, this woman had managed to recruit a friend of mine into her group. I started to do an online investigation to figure out what they were in to. I discovered they were into a movement called “Hebrew Roots.” The basic premise of the group is to start following the law again. In the process, they throw Jesus under the bus. With Jesus, we don’t need the law. Salvation comes from acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior, the One who died, rose again, and paid the price for our sins. You need to throw Jesus out in order to return to practicing the law.

So for me, as a Christian, is it okay for me to celebrate Christmas? Absolutely. Am I a pagan if I do celebrate? Absolutely not. Christmas gives us a big, big reason to celebrate. Jesus coming to this planet is a big, big reason. So as for me and my household, we celebrate Christmas, And we do it in good conscience. We celebrate our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’s birth, who provided a way of salvation for all mankind. I think that’s worth celebrating!