John Avery, Church Administrator
It seems like only yesterday that we were wrapping up Thanksgiving dinner. My, how the weeks have flown! We’ve covered a lot of ground since then. We broke out the Christmas decorations in a hurry to have things all set for the first Sunday in Advent. We’ve had Christmas parties for various ministries of the church, my favorite being the opportunity the men had to serve at the Women’s Ministry Christmas Luncheon. We had a wonderful Christmas Concert and reception. A delightful Advent Dinner, and as I write we’re fast approaching the Christmas Eve service. Say, by the way, what day is that on? Oh yeah! The 24th at 4:30. By the time you read this it will be (cue dramatic music) the day after Christmas. More shopping and hubbub, and don’t forget New Year’s resolutions.
Christmas is one of my three favorite holidays. I rank them as Easter, Christmas, and Thanksgiving as a somewhat distant third. You can’t beat Thanksgiving for its relative simplicity. One big meal, football, a nap, and we’ll do it all again next year about this time. However, it seems to me that as Christians there can be no more important day(s) to celebrate than the days on which our Lord was born and the day He rose again, “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
There have been a couple of recurring themes in my thoughts during this Christmas season. One has been caused by an incessant string of Facebook posts from a purportedly Reformed group contending that there is no Scriptural warrant for celebrating Christmas. I might agree that the commercialized version that is relentlessly marketed from before Halloween until after New Year’s Day is an aberration, but these Facebook posts make a broader statement. I’ve never been accused of being a theologian, but I have read and studied the Bible. I think it is more accurate to say that there is no Scriptural warrant for failing to celebrate the birth of Immanuel! Celebrate!
The other thought running through my mind this and every year has to do with what we call the humiliation of Christ. My earliest thoughts about this term were focused on the mocking, derision, brutal beatings, and ultimate execution of Jesus. These facts would indeed be humiliating to any of us, but they were necessary to fulfill His purpose for being on this earth. My fuller understanding of the Humiliation includes not only the circumstances of Christ’s death on our behalf, nor even the circumstances of His birth, born of a woman and all the messy details of that reality. The fuller picture is that Christ’s humiliation was becoming one of us, a human being. The living Creator Who spoke into being everything that is has stooped to our level, to become one of us, in order to save us.
The Apostle Paul put it this way, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5–11)
Now that’s something to celebrate! And don’t worry that all of the good stuff at SVC has already happened in December. We will start a Wednesday evening dinner and Bible study series on the Sovereignty of God on January 21, in addition to the Financial Peace program. Make plans now to join in.
