It’s Monday… but it’s also Christmas Day. For many/most American Christians, today competes with Thanksgiving and Easter as one of the most significant – and memory-making – days of each year’s calendar. Call a time-out for a sideline download before you get back on the family game field; let me give you something to think about as you prepare to be as memorable as Gabriel was in announcing the headlines of Heaven relative to Christmas…

We’re surrounded by cultural citizens who regard Christmas as a business boondoggle: the capstone of commerce in a consumer society is the annual buying boost that begins on Black Friday and ends with New Year’s Eve. Ask them for the message behind the décor and drinks; they’ll stumble and fall as their ignorance denies a meaningful response.

Matthew and Luke gave us the basis for the Christmas scenes that have surrounded us all month. Angels and shepherds; an evil king and Magi pilgrims; a sold-out inn and a scat-littered stable are all in the details of the Messiah’s birth story. 

John wrote last, but he gave the macro-view that makes the Bethlehem story timeless: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind… The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-4, 14).

The Eternal Godhead – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – engaging the fallen world with the only hope we would have to be restored to relationship with him and hope for a future alongside him. The birth of Jesus was the beachhead of God’s invasion of a world run amok under the cruel deception of Satan. 

The birth of Jesus; the life of Jesus; the death of Jesus; the resurrection of Jesus: that’s the Story that has changed our story, forever. How big a deal is that?

C.S. Lewis put it succinctly: “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

Who needs to know that Story? The answer to that is patently clear: everyone, everywhere… beginning with the loved-ones around today’s tree and table, and – beyond the birthday party for Jesus – everyone alive on the planet.

You need to make it clear to those family-and-friend faces today, and you need to join forces with friends – like us! – to mobilize the forces to get the breaking news once heralded by angels to the unpenetrated people who are still waiting to celebrate their own spiritual birthday.

Merry Christmas, dear friend! May this day be deep in meaning for you and among the precious folks with whom you exercise the influence of Kingdom leadership.

Bob Shank