By today’s standards, I grew up in an idyllic time, in an ideal family. One of twelve children, I always had siblings to play with. But there were times when all wasn’t rosy. My parents had six sons in a row (I was the fourth in line), and as brothers are wont to do, we fought. In addition to this, when you’re in a big family, you don’t always get your way. There were times I felt like the world was against me. In those moments, I’d get alone and tell myself, “Christmas is coming!”
What made Christmas such a cure-all for the heartaches of this scrawny little kid? Sure, there were the normal trappings of Christmas – the tree, lights, stockings, presents. But that wasn’t all. Those things were fun for a time, but it was something deeper. It was something in the Christmas story that held out a promise of a world where the miseries of life would be transformed into a new world of peace and joy. The carols all told of it – all because of the babe of Christmas.
It’s fitting that Christmas comes at the end of each year. We look back on the carnage of another trip around the sun – with a pile of evidence that this world is writhing in the agony of sin. What we need is to know that there’s hope. We lump Christmas with New Years – “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!” – but no matter how merry our Christmas is, even the most optimistic of us will admit that another new year is not going to be happy. Sin has seen to that.
But even if we are resigned to a new year not being ‘happy’, the babe of Christmas can have the effect on your life that He did when I needed a light in a dark day growing up. As an old hymn puts it, “The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin; the Light of the world, is Jesus!” The glitz of Christmas comes and goes, but the Light of the world changes lives.
So I offer a variation on the normal seasonal greeting: This year, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Life. It’s a life that begins the moment you trust in Jesus, the babe of Christmas, who grew up and gave His life on the cross for your sin. He offers forgiveness of sin and the gift of eternal life in heaven for all who believe in Him. And what He gives is new life: Old things have passed away; new things have come (2 Cor. 5.17)!
Believe in Jesus as your Savior this Christmas. Open the greatest gift, and start experiencing a ‘Happy New Life’ in Him.