The spirit of Christmas needs to be superseded by the Spirit of Christ. The spirit of Christmas is annual; the Spirit of Christ is eternal. The spirit of Christmas is sentimental; the Spirit of Christ is supernatural. The spirit of Christmas is a human product; the Spirit of Christ is a divine person. That makes all the difference in the world.
Meet Him at the Manger, Christianity Today, v. 41, n. 14.
The truth is, even if Christ were born in Bethlehem a thousand times but not within you, you would be eternally lost. The Christ who was born into the world must be born in your heart. Religious sentiment, even at Christmastime, without the living Christ is a yellow brick road to darkness.
Taken from Luke-Volume 1 by Kent Hughes, copyright 1998, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org.
Here’s the Christmas message: The shepherds believed and their belief resulted in action. They immediately departed for Bethlehem. The Bible says they “found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger.” They also proclaimed the good news to others as the first Christian evangelists when they told others what was told them about the Child. And then they worshipped. Luke 2:20, “The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.”
Sermon, Celebrating a Biblical Christmas, Isaiah 7:14, December 13, 2022.
Displaying a Christmas nativity scene is a long-standing tradition, but it can also present a bit of a skewed view of the actual events of Jesus’ birth. While each person depicted in a traditional nativity scene is a part of the Christmas story, not all the characters were present in one place on the night Jesus was born. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were in a stable that night due to the overcrowding in Bethlehem’s inn (Luke 2:7), but the Bible never mentions whether or not animals were present—in fact, it never even mentions a stable. The shepherds, once told of Jesus’ arrival, left their flocks to worship the newborn King (Luke 2:16). However, the angels, which are often part of nativity scenes, bore the good news to the shepherds in the fields (Luke 2:8–14). As far as we know, there were no angels flying visibly over the place where Jesus was when the shepherds arrived. In addition, the wise men (the Bible never says how many there were) were also probably not present that first night. The magi visited Jesus some time later, when He was in a house (Matthew 2:1–11).
Got Questions? What is a Christmas nativity? Used by Permission.
This Gospel anticipates a world far different from C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, where it is “always winter, and never Christmas.” The promise of the Gospel is that it is “always Christmas.” To be “in Christ” is to enjoy each morning as a Christmas morning with the family of God, celebrating the gift of God around the tree of life.
This We Believe, John Armstrong and John Woodbridge, ed. Zondervan, 2000, p. 76.
