A few days more and its Christmas. Christian celebrate Christmas every December 25, and even non-Christians have their share of season’s celebration. Business establishments have Christmas parties, exchanging gifts for their employees across religious beliefs.
But what does Christmas mean to you?
Christmas season is characterized by gift-giving. Christmas parties and gatherings will always be marked with a windfall of gifts. Unfortunately, the gift-giving has trivialized the Christmas celebration. It becomes more of a habitual practice than reverence to the celebrant. More than the commercialization, it diminishes the essence of Christmas. It replaces Jesus’ birth as the center-piece of Christmas and God’s love as the primary element.
Matthew 2:1-2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
Reflection:
The birth of Jesus brings enlightenment to the world. John 8:12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Blessed are those who follow Jesus for they will see life eternal. And Christmas is just like a high-noon light of the day for them. However, many still opted to stay under the shadow of the worldly pleasures, may this Christmas will serve as the sunrise that will illuminate their life.
John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Reflection:
The real story of Christmas is Jesus being God himself became human as the love-gift of God to humanity. God gave his one and only Son to the world to save those whoever believes in him. Philippians 2:6-8 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Jesus is the greatest gift that man could ever receive. Boxed with humility, wrapped by mercy and grace, containing of redemption and salvation that whoever received bears a new tag for the old-self is gone and the new creation has come. Henceforth, the recipient will bear the tag of Jesus Christ – “Christian”. The identity that bestow eternal eligibility to be with Christ in Paradise. John 1:12 “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”.
Mapping journeys, building bridges. 