Waking up on this most blessed morning, hearing the sounds of music, smelling coffee, watching the smiles on my girls’ faces, I could not help but wonder what the world would be like if there were no Christmas. What if our Lord had never come to earth in a body? What if the Almighty had never wrapped Himself in flesh?
There would be no joy to the world. O, holy night, where would it be? We would not have heard angels singing on high and “Nativity” would be just another word. My daughter would not understand “manger” the way she does, and would anyone really use that word for any other reason?
What if HE had not yet come? We would be wailing at the wall with all of Israel. We would be begging God to send a Messiah, a Savior, a King to rescue us. The shepherds would have simply abided in their field and another silent night would have passed.
There still wouldn’t have been any room at the inn but Mary and Joseph would have been staying in a barn all by themselves. The night air would not have been pierced with the sound the infant King’s voice. No visitors would have shown up. No gifts would have been brought. That’s the whole reason we exchange gifts anyway; we honor a memory and we have built a tradition around the giving that happened outside the little town of Bethlem. The retailers would have to make up their own marketing gimmick, there’d be no “brown paper packages tied up with string”, no list to check twice, no reason to be naughty or nice.
Please come home for what? Those 3 wise kings would have had no particular place to be and the caravan would have never left. Gold would still be around but most of the free world would have no clue what frankincense and myrrh are. Do you hear what I hear? Nothing. “Christmas” wouldn’t even be a word, there’d be no peace on earth or good will toward men.
There’d be no jingle bells and we’d have a “blue, blue” nameless night. There would not be a “Gloria in excelsis Deo”, no lights, no tinsel, the mountains would not reply in their joyous strain, and no one would a clue who Mary or Joseph were.
There’d be no pretty paper or pretty ribbons. There’d be no gingerbread homes, no gingerbread men, and certainly no Christmas cookies. We would have no peppermint, cane candies shaped like a shepherd’s staff, “Noel” wouldn’t be a word, and there’d be nothing to go and tell on the mountain. Mary did you know? If HE had not come there would be no midnight clear, no virgin birth, and not so much to be merry about.
No one would know what a Grinch was, there’d be no grown up Christmas lists, and we’d have no reason to deck the halls. Every single bit of meaning we have built around this most glorious occasion would be totally non-existent.
Without the birth of Jesus there’d be no John the Baptist or any other Baptist for that matter. There’d be no name under heaven whereby we must be saved. The 5 thousand would have never gathered, much less been fed with 2 fish and 5 loaves. The water would not have been turned to wine, Lazarus would have died only once, and at least one thief would have never seen paradise. The symbol of the cross would mean death instead of life, the apostles would have died being fisherman and public officials, and the veil would still be in one piece.
We would still be living under law which tells us what’s wrong with us but no how to fix it. There would be no beatitudes, no healings, no miracles, and no salvation. Without Christmas there would never have been a man who could live up to the measure of God’s expectations, so HE did it HIMSELF! We had a debt that was only being pushed back every year on Yom Kippur. We had sold ourselves to sin for a price we could never repay.
Without Christmas there would be no Calvary, no temple raised up in 3 days, and no stone rolled away. I would have awakened this morning to a day with no meaning, nothing to live for, and the inherited, human-family curse of sin. Because God made Himself a body, because God came down and did what I could not do, I have Christmas and all that it represents. Merry Christmas to all. May the love and grace of our mighty God in Christ be upon us as we build His church in 2012!
