Christmas usually brings various memories to different people. One of my vivid memories of Christmas is it is the only time I went to church during my preteen years. There are three occasions that I went to church before I reached puberty. Two of these times were on Christmas Day.
The atmosphere in church was charged as the Sunday school children and youth group performed their Christmas Cantata. There were numerous skits, for the church I went to, used to have one service for all its daughter churches in our town. The various congregations would therefore come with their presentations. Songs, dances, narratives and endless hymns were present in these Swahili services.
I never slept during the service. I found humour in watching people doze off but the smell of fart and bad breathe around also contributed to my alertness. To some degree you can say I feared God. Feared in the sense of scared not reverence. I didn’t therefore want to have issues with God coz I slept in his house without permission.
Easter was the other time I attended a church service in my preteens. The mood of the house was fairly sober not full of jokes like the Christmas service. I think I had watched the Jesus film on KBC and was greatly moved around this time. Maybe it’s what influenced me to want go to church.
Overtime, I have come to understand John21:25. It’s given that we celebrate the birth of Jesus in December and then 84 or 112 days later, depending on the moon’s orbit, we celebrate Easter. John (one of the guys who recorded Jesus’ life while on earth) said “there were many other things Jesus did. If every one of them were written down, I suppose the whole world would not be big enough for all the books that would be written.”
An insight I get from this verse is the books wouldn’t be enough because you and I live between Easter and Christmas. Our lives are part of the books to be written of what Jesus did and is doing in our lives. But even if we were to focus on Jesus’ life while on earth alone, the books would still not be enough. Let’s pick two things from his life for example.
The cradle
In the books of the bible, every time God was to meet with people, the first thing he would say is “do not be afraid.” All angelic/supernatural visitations before Jesus had the angels begging humans not to fear as their salutations. The cradle that we remember during Christmas, tells that God has broken this communication barrier; for who would fear a baby? Which human being would fear a baby in a cradle?
The God who spoke and the mountains trembled. The God in whose presence people were filled with great fear. The God who none could stand before him, was, during Christmas, struggling to use never before used lungs, couldn’t control his bladder, cried when hungry and was at the mercies of his mother to survive at all times.
For the first time in history since the fall, God could again talk with man in the cool of the day. People could again come and bring gifts to hail him without fear.
The cradle of Christianity reminds us God has provided a framework for our relationship with him that we don’t have to fear him when he talks to us.
The cross
The baby Jesus grew in stature, wisdom and in favour with God and men. In Hebrews, there is a verse that says Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. There was a guy called Stephen who when he was being stoned to death for calling himself a Christian, said he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Both these verses talk of life after the cross with regard to Jesus.
Before Jesus, there had never been a human being in heaven. Angels, demons, the devil, cherubim, seraphim and all spiritual beings have been to heaven but no human being has ever been. Yes, a person with a heart pumping blood, with nailed pierced hands and feet, with pubic hair and to this experience every creature in heaven bows down. It’s almost like the reaction human beings used to give angelic beings when they visited the earth.
The cross of Christianity reminds us that human beings can get to heaven through it.
Everyday life
How does the cross and the cradle apply to our everyday life?
The cross speaks of many things including telling us of our inability, our brokenness, our humanity, our unrighteousness, and how God transforms us and our everyday struggles to be a little heaven down here on earth en route. The cradle on the other hand tells of God’s love for his creation, God’s redemption agenda for the world, and it invites us to come join this mission of God of making this world a better place starting by knowing Jesus.
I was never big on celebrating Christmas as a child. There are people who are usually bubbly whenever a holiday is due. I am not like that. Actually, through my teens and my young adult life, I have never enjoyed the craze fm stations get with replaying Christmas jingles. So I create my own play list during Christmas. Usually it is full of hymns. Perhaps it is me trying to relive my childhood Christmas experience only in a clean, serene environment, bordering a British culture.
This Christmas I tried to build a Christmas tree with what the birth of Jesus means to humanity. So I light it up with three updates a day on my timeline about Christmas for thirty days. There are days I said more others I said less. Let me share my favourite fifty updates to date. I was limited to 126 characters on twitter so I’ll try and expound what I wanted to say in the posts
1) During Christmas we remember angels have names like Gabriel. I wonder if they have an Ondieki or do they just have English, Greek and Hebrew names? Or are angels given names according to their stations eg Alex’s bedroom angels (remember when you were scared of the dark and you were told angels are watching over you?)
2) The Christmas season is a great opportunity to examine the claims of Christ. He claimed to be God. These claims can be substantiated to be true. Everybody has an opinion about Jesus. People are generally okay to talk about God provided you don’t talk about Jesus. One claim that Jesus made is that he is God. Christmas is a great time to examine these claims.
3) Great communicators can learn a lesson from the Master teacher Jesus on the importance of having a proper environment to teach your message. Jesus taught about resurrection at the tomb of Lazarus just before he raised him from the dead. Christmas reminds us of the birth of this great teacher.
4) Christmas remind us of our call to join God’s mission of redeeming the world. We are to have a convicted civility amongst Christians who don’t believe like you do and invite non believers to the Kingdom of God. You need to give a shit about this and be civil if you don’t want me to us the word shit.
5) The gospel that we proclaim like Paul in the bible is not “you can be saved, and this is how” but rather that “Jesus is Lord.” This is important to remember because Paul said if anyone preaches any other gospel apart from this then he/she is cursed. Whether it’s an angel from heaven or people.
6) During Christmas we remember Jesus brought peace and good news to all our troubles and better news for all our successes.
7) Did you know, there are 332 distinct prophecies about a messiah in the OT? The mathematical probability of one man to fulfill all in one life time is 1/(840*10^32)
8) Christmas reminds us to honor our spouses. Joseph would have dishonoured Mary but he stuck with her through the drama whether people believed her or not.
9) During Christmas we celebrate with all the angels and creation with one word that means the same thing in all languages, hallelujah
10) Christmas is not about so much about spending as it is about giving. If you are to spend, remember to spend on the poor or those less fortunate than you. I posted this when I saw a headline on the news paper on how to get great savings during Christmas. The article was titled a Black Christmas comparing it with Black Friday
11) In the story of Christmas, we see Caesar Augustus conducting the first world population census. This is a great lesson for governments that they need population statics for planning purposes. Governments ought to therefore mark Christmas celebrations in this light.
12) With all the replayed jingles and commercialization of Christmas, may the advent- second coming of Jesus- save your Christmas story. May you be hungry for the second coming of Jesus and may Jesus not meet your hunger but meet you in your hunger
13) Jesus brought peace. We celebrate him during Christmas for we can have peace even when we are sick, broke, defeated, failed. This i posted during world AIDS day.
14) We are freewill agents. A good way to submitting our freewill to God is to answer like Mary when the angel Gabriel brought the news of her immaculate conception. “Be it unto me, according to your word”
15) It’s like God chose to be born in a boma of cows that there be no accusation of favouritism or of having a privileged background. A great lesson to have during Christmas
16) Christmas remind us not to read stars. The magi, who went to see Jesus, did so after seeing his star. They were astrologers. They however did not call Jesus a capricon hence ascribe the myths of those born in that day. By the way, astrology is based on the belief that the earth is the centre of the universe and every planet and stars revolve around it. I think you know better. You know better thanks to astronomy. It is therefore not wise to read horoscopes
17) Every living thing that has breathe is allowed to sing about Christmas. It’s who you are singing to that matters
18) Christmas reminds us not to judge people by their appearance. When the wise men went to see the new born king, savoir of the world, they saw a baby in a manger
19) A proper perspective is really important about Christmas. You can either see Christmas as having pagan roots or you can see it as a time when pagans can celebrate the birth of a saviour
20) When Job was going through his issues, he asked God, “Do you have eyes of flesh that you do not see?” for a time in history, God did. We remember this in Christmas
21) Did you know, had Jesus been born before John the Baptist, Jesus would have brought a curse of judgment to the world (Malachi3:1-3)
22) During Christmas we give gifts especially to the less fortunate coz Jesus said when we do this, we are giving to him
23) We sing Christmas carols because the night that Jesus was born, the angels broke in praise. It’s like the way we say, the opera isn’t over until the fat lady sings, well the fat angel must have sung for the party to begin (Luk2:13)
24) Christmas is good news for Africans because Africa has a special place in Jesus’ heart. Jesus was a refugee in Africa like millions of Africans today
25) Christmas reminds us of the value of family support. Imagine the pressure James (Jesus younger brother) would have felt every time being asked “why can’t you be more like Jesus”
26) During Christmas we remember Jesus overcame the stigma of a questionable background. Imagine him telling his pals his mum was a virgin. He can therefore help you if you struggle with your identity
27) Jesus Christ is a name and a title. The name is Jesus meaning savoir and Christ is the title meaning anointed King.
28) On December 25th we remember the one who split human history into two. Life before him which we date as BC and life after his death we date as AD. We are in 2011AD
You can follow the rest on my timeline.
Have a merry Christmas
