Christmas means many different things to lots of different people.  Some like to focus on the gifts, others on spending time with loved ones.  For some it means a time to reflect on the year that was or to remember the things that are really important.  Christmas means putting aside differences and living in peace. It’s about being generous, spreading joy, a time to celebrate and at times to over indulge.  But ultimately, before all of these other things, Christmas really means ‘God is with us’.

Making it personal

It’s one thing to know about someone, to have an awareness that they exist and even know something about them but it’s another thing completely to interact with an individual, to see them up close and experience them in the flesh.  Until the birth of Jesus, people were able to believe in God, to revere and worship Him, but through Jesus we are now able to have a personal relationship with the Creator of all things.

All in it together

The story of Christmas is well-known.  The angel messenger, the virgin birth, the stable, shepherds and wise men, but strip all of these things away and you’re left with Jesus, God’s Son, being born as a baby.  In this person we see God, in every way divine, but we also see man, human and frail. Christmas means God with us because with Jesus, becoming a man, he experienced everything that constitutes the human experience.  He felt the pain of loss and rejection, the fear of being vulnerable, the joys and the sorrows we all go through.  We are no longer alone in our suffering because Jesus has also been there.

Time to choose

This Christmas season, while you enjoy the festivities and celebrations, just take a moment to appreciate the fact that God moved heaven and earth to make a way for us to have a relationship with Him.  He left His own sphere and wrote Himself into the narrative of our existence.  God gave us a version of Himself so that we could grasp and understand who He really is.

His message to you this year is that He is with you and wants to be included in your life.  The next move is yours.