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Happenings around Antioch

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. I daresay every one of you can sing along with me on any of those tunes, and many more besides.  They have become synonymous with the American Christmas experience. They help, some say, “get you in the Christmas spirit.” Along with eggnog and stockings and George Bailey and Charlie Brown.

I love those American Christmas traditions. And they can have a place in our celebrations, I think. But like the cattle in the Bethlehem stable, they simply become window dressing or background scenes to the real story. Because Christmas is not Christmas without Christ. This is the season in which the whole world, even many who do not believe, celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. You can try to bury the truth in a mountain of gift wrap and candy                                                                                                                                   canes, but facts are stubborn things.

Imagine at your next birthday party, all of your friends gather to celebrate. But instead of bringing you gifts and singing Happy Birthday to you, instead of eating cake and ice cream, the celebration is wildly different. One stands and sings a happy little song about the stork that “brings presents to all.” Another gives a thirty-minute lecture about cabbage, complete with pictures and props. Then everybody eats and drinks until they cannot move. There is not a single word about you and your birth. Not a single story about how your life has impacted another. No gifts, no cards, nothing about you at all. It was your birthday, but you were not even mentioned the whole evening. Could that really be called your “birthday party?” 

If I told you I had shared meals with Buddy Greene, and we exchange Christmas cards, that would not mean anything to most of you. But if I started singing, “Mary, Did You Know?” you would probably be able to sing along with me. Mark Lowry wrote the words and gave them to Buddy, who is a Christian singer and songwriter living in Nashville, and Buddy wrote the music the next day. The song has been recorded by dozens of artists. I believe this song captures, much better than “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree,” what we celebrate as followers of the Lord Jesus.

Mary did you know that your baby boy would some day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered, will soon deliver you.

Mary did you know that your baby boy would give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when your kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.

Oh Mary did you know—

The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the lamb—.

Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you’re holding is the great–I— AM—.

Ahhh. Now that is a song that celebrates the real deal. So, without apologies at all to those who wish we Christians would just stuff ourselves with turkey and keep Christ out of it…I wish you all a very merry, Christ-centered, Christmas.