“Then the angel said to [the shepherds], ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’” (Luke 2:10-14 NKJV)
It is Christmas time, and there is no other place on the calendar which can compare with it, no other season which makes its mark on the lives of so many people in so many ways. You can love Christmas, as most of us do, or you can dread it, as some surely do; but you can’t ignore it.
We can, however, miss the center, the point and the issue of the season, which is Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, in our culture, you can very easily miss Him. Warren Lewis overheard a woman on a city bus in England mutter, “O, Lor’! They bring religion into everything.” She pointed to a crèche in front of a church. “Look – They’re dragging it even into Christmas now.” (William Griffin in “Clive Staples Lewis, a Dramatic Life”) For vast numbers of secular people, Jesus Christ is just that incidental to the Christmas season; so much so that they think of Him, and the religion which bears His name, as an intrusion on their conglomerate of Santa Claus, parties and shopping.
-- J. Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015) in a sermon entitled “Matthew: Christ the Man”
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