The Meaning of Christmas

The Meaning of Christmas

“Little children, though they may not know a story word for word, dearly love to hear the Christmas story told and retold. We are like the little children when we hear the Christmas story. We have known it sense the toddling days, yet we treasure it, and hear it again with continuous joy. For Christmas is like the never fading candle shining in the world’s darkness; and the Christmas fires warm every watching, waiting heart even as the shepherd’s fire drove back the chill of the winter  night. The manger of Bethlehem renews our faith; it keeps our hope alive and gives love its greatest meaning. Life would be all winter without it. And so it is that Christmas comes again with its heartening story that never grows old.”

As we listen to the rereading or the retelling of the Christmas story we are enthralled by its simple beauty. The Christmas story is beautiful beyond anything which man’s imagination could have produced. What a picture meets the inner eye of the spirit on the opening pages of the gospel of Luke. The appearance of an angel to the hand maiden of the Lord, the journey of a man and his wife from their home in Nazareth unto Bethlehem to be taxed, the search by travel weary parents for lodging, the birth of a baby, wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a manger, the appearance of angels to a band of shepherds faithfully performing their task on a cold winters night, the announcement: “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” In all the realm of literature there is no story more beautiful than is this record of the first Christmas.

Very often the beauty of a picture blinds us to its real significance. How true this has been of Christmas! Throughout the Christian era thousands, yes, millions have gathered in homage at the manger, have been entranced by its sublime picture, and have listened to the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace amongst men of good will.” But they have gone away to live life upon the same low plane because the meaning of Christmas has been hidden” – “having ears to hear they have not heard, and eyes to see they have not seen.”

Christmas means that the home has been enshrined. Christmas began in a home. About Mary and Joseph were cattle, their babies bed was a manger, but it was a home. There is one trinity that every one can understand – father, mother, and a little child. They alone make a home. A home is not furniture, a house or goods. Home is where the family is, united in the bonds of joy and peace.

Christmas and family are almost synonymous for Christmas has ever been a family celebration. Christmas never seems the same when by force of circumstances families must be separated. From the moment that we first think of a new Christmas season we concentrate upon plans and devise means whereby the family circle can be complete about the Christmas tree. No greater blessing could come to our country at this Christmas season than a rebirth of family life, family loyalty, and family religion. How enriching it would be to the Church life of America if there could be reinstituted the family pew, wherein Mother and Dad, brother and sister sat together and worshipped God Sunday after Sunday! How helpful it would be to family life and training of the child if at this Christmas season there would be reestablished in the homes of our land the family altar, where day by day the family would together read God’s Word and lift their hearts to God in prayer! The family is the basic unit in American life, as goes the family so goes the nation.

“So long as there are homes to which men turn

At the close of day,

So long as there are homes where children are,

Where women stay,

If love and loyalty and faith be found

Across these sills,

A stricken nation can recover form

Its greatest ills.

So long as there are homes where firs burn

And there is bread,

So long as there are homes where lamps are lit

And prayers are said,

Although a people falters through the dark

And nations grope,

We still can hope.”

Christmas means, too, that the commonplace has been ennobled. How significant it was that the Messiah should have been born in a stable rather than in a palace; that he first cloths that covered His body were swaddling bands and not garments of purple; that the first sounds that fell upon His ears were the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep rather than the blaring of trumpets announcing the birth of a royal heir. How wonderful that the first announcement of His birth came upon a lonely hillside rather than to a group of world leaders sitting about a conference table. Never has the worth and dignity of the common man been more clearly demonstrated than in these circumstances. Here is the very essence of democracy.

Our thinking today is in terms of bigness. When our country began we thought in terms of a family unit or a wilderness settlement. Then as our nation grew we thought in terms of a state and then in terms of a union of states, and now today we are thinking in terms of one world government. At first we thought in terms of small village stores, then in terms of a chain of stores and now today it is mostly big corporations and big business. Do not misunderstand me. I do not criticize a world vision, we need it; I do not condemn big business, it no doubt has been a big boon to our national development and has contributed to a higher standard of living. I criticize bigness only in so far as it has caused us to lose sight of the commonplace, the common man, and the little things. So often, today, we think in terms of doing the big things and forget to do the little things. In this Christmas season, let us not forget that the first message of Christmas came to a band of lowly shepherds performing a little task. Faithfulness in little things prepares us to do the big things faithfully.

I heard this past week a thrilling account of a Church’s search for a janitor. It was the church in Huntington. An advertisement had been placed in the paper and there were a good number of applicants. One man who applied was a tall strapping man. At the outset of the interview the minister thought that this man had made a mistake that he would be capable of a much better paying job, and he told the man so. But the man said, “Let me tell you my story.” And he proceeded to tell a sordid story of a life spent in the swine pit of sin, of a family that was deserted, and a home destroyed. One night he stumbled, drunk into the Union Mission of Charleston and there was found by Christ. A life was transformed, a home reestablished, a family re-united. He told the minister that when he saw the ad in the paper that he knew that this was the job the Lord had for him. He secured the job. The minister told how that man is thoroughly dedicated to his work as a janitor for he “would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

Christmas had given new meaning to the little tasks of life. It has shown that no task faithfully performed is little in the eyes of God.

Christmas, also means that the individual has been emphasized. It reveals that the individual is important in the eyes of God. To God there is no such thing as a worthless man or woman. Christmas is proof of this, for Christmas is the time of Immanuel – God with us. God so loved man that He gave is only begotten Son. God is so aware of man that the hairs of his head are numbered.

We are living in a world today that has lost sight of this fundamental truth. Many governments think of a man as a pawn upon a chessboard, his life to be moved and regimented according to the will of the government. They have lost sight of the truth that “government is of the people, by the people, for the people.” All too many businesses look upon man as nothing but cogs in the wheels of industry and forget that man has a soul and is important. We need to hear at this Christmas season the words of Synesius spoken to the Roman governor, “You’re treating men as if they were cheap, but man is a thing of price, for Christ died for him.“ God grant that at this Christmas season we may come to new understanding of the dignity of man and the high worth of the individual.

Once more the familiar Christmas story with its radiant beauty is being told to a world that is steeped in darkness of midnight. This message which enshrines the family, ennobles the common place, and emphasizes the worth of the individual can transform our world. Our mistake in the past has been in the thinking of the Christmas message only in terms of that which comes to us rather than that to which we come.

A Negro soldier in looking over a questionnaire placed before him reported to have shaken his head dubiously. He could not write very well, but he scratched at the top of the sheet, “I dunno what it’s all about, but when yuh needs me, heah I is.” The weakness of our Christianity has not been that we do not know what it is all about, but we have not been willing to say, “Heah I is.” May we at this Christmas season with an understanding of the meaning of Christmas in our minds, say from our heart unto God, “Heah I is, use even me.”

Dr. Robert W Kirkpatrick

Presbyterian Church Hinton, W Va. December 22, 1954