'Tis the season and the air is filled with Christmas songs, both religious and secular. Have you ever noticed how many of the Christmas songs speak about the activities associated with Christmas. Here in the United States our already busy lives become even busier during this time season. Many, if not all, have one time or another, after Christmas day has passed, ask ourselves that penetrating question; "Why do we go through all of this anyway?" It is a question that stems from the frustration of activity run amuck. Not that all we do is wrong. It is that the preeminent activity of Christmas is overshadowed by the lesser important things.
Scripture reveals what that preeminent activity is to be. Luke 2:8-17 records that shepherds received an angelic announcement concerning the Savior's birth. As soon as they received the message "they hurried off" to find the child. Matthew 2:1-12 reveals that star following Magi from the east sought "the King of the Jews." For both the shepherds and the Magi all other activity took a back seat to seeking the Christ.
When the Magi found Jesus "they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh." They worshiped Him; not the stable, not the manger, not the event, not the family, they worshiped Jesus! After seeing Jesus the shepherds "spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them." They could not remain silent! For both the shepherds and Magi their seeking was honored and what, no Who, they found transformed them.
Herein lies the preeminent Christmas activity for all. We are to seek Jesus, worship Him, and tell everyone we can about what we have seen and heard concerning Him. "Seek and you shall find," Jesus promised. And when we find Him the only reasonable worship is to offer ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice wholly and acceptable unto Him. As He transforms us by grace through our faith we cannot remain silent. All else we may speak pales in comparison to sharing Jesus and His saving work in our lives. These three actions are so interwoven that it is nearly impossible to separate them. That is why we can refer to it as the preeminent Christmas (Christian) activity - seek, worship, and tell!
Beloved, as we enter the Advent season, let us make a conscious concerted effort to be sure that all we do to celebrate Christmas is a seeking, worshiping, and sharing Christ activity! Without this, all we do is an empty enterprise of filling our lives with that which can neither satisfy or last.
Keep Close To Jesus
Pastor Gerry