What is Christmas About?

What is Christmas About: A Short Reminder by E. A. Adeboye

It’s the most wonderful time of the year and it means different things to different people around the world. To some it is just a regular end of year thanksgiving, and others take it as the longest break they get from work. While some make a lot of money from Christmas, others spend the entire year’s savings on it.

But what really is Christmas?

You should be sure of what (or who) you’re celebrating in the midst of the noise and abuse of the holiday going on in the world. Christmas is beyond the happy holiday the world calls it. Over the years, the message behind Christmas might have been lost to activities and ungodly practices, but it doesn’t mean it has lost the reason it is being celebrated.

So what then is Christmas? Christmas is the day set aside to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Call it Jesus’ birthday and you’ll be very correct.

25th December is not the actual day Jesus was born, but from speculations and study and research on the happenings that took place around the time of His birth, it points towards December on the Gregorian calendar.

So why must we celebrate Christmas?

The first and only answer is: Why not?

Jesus Himself speaking in the only elaborate sermon He gave about being born again said to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 verse 16: ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…’

That is Christmas.

It was the day God gave Himself to the world He loved. Yes, He was born to die, that was the completion of the gift, but without being born He wouldn’t have been able to die.

So we don’t just give thanks for His death and resurrection; the gift of the Son was a package that kept unfolding, from His birth till His resurrection.

So again I answer the question of why we celebrate Christmas with: why not?

At His birth, the angels declared: "Glory to God in the highest, peace on Earth and goodwill to men." God had finally executed His peace plan and not just brought in His peace to the Earth, He came Himself to make peace with the earth and didn’t just give us peace, He is our peace. Peace personified had finally come to the Earth to make peace by giving Himself as a peace offering, and like a preacher said, ‘When God wanted to bring peace and make peace with the earth, He smuggled it in as a baby.’

That’s a huge reason, if not the only reason to celebrate Christmas.Our freedom, our victory, our salvation, though freely received, cost God the very life of His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ. It cost Jesus not only the pain and suffering of a gruesome and gory crucifixion and death, not only all the sins of the world heaped upon Him (past, present and future), but also separation from the Father for the first and only time ever in eternity. 

E. A. Adeboye