Traditionally, the Christmas story is found
in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but I would like to show that the Christmas
story can be found in other places as well….
From
the “Christmas Carol”;
“Are
you the spirit sir, whose coming was foretold to me? ”I am”… The voice was soft
and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were
at a distance. “Who are you?” Scrooge demanded…“I am the ghost of Christmas
Past.”
We too have a Christmas past. Our scripture
underscores our Christmas past as being one of alienation from God and even
enemies in our minds, because of our evil behavior. Notice the past tense of
the words “this is what you once were.”
As Christians we must see that there was a time when we were alienated
from God. We had no use for God. We didn’t even think about God that much. We
had a rather indifferent attitude. In fact, our behavior was influenced by
self, the flesh, the natural man spoken of by the Apostle Paul in Galations 5 -
“For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the spirit
what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so
that you do not do what you want….I warn you, as I did before, that those who
live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
After the fall in the Book of Genesis, this
is what it says about God’s view of man - “The Lord saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth, and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil”…
Sin always starts in the mind; works its way to the heart; and into our
behavior. No one likes to see themselves as sinful, because we don’t really
believe we are all that bad. And, books like “When bad things happen to good
people” and “I’m O.K., You’re O.K. by Thomas Harris, give a sense that we are
really good people. And, if along our journey we happen to come to know Christ,
then we are somehow “better” people. This humanistic teaching or train of
thought sees man as being “good” in and of himself. However, the painful truth is that man is
sinful. And until we see our Christmas past as being one of separation from God
or being alienated from God because of our sin, we will never really appreciate
the Christmas Present or the Christmas Future.
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