WARNING PREACHY
(Read Luke Chapter 2)
The Celebration of Birth…
You may have heard me say this before but do you know why we have birthday parties in the first place? (Other than it’s a good reason for cake?) The reason might seem a little morbid, but the reason we celebrate someone’s birthday is because they did not die in the past year.
What is the most important birthday that we celebrate? It’s the very first one. Mortality rates for new-borns were not always as good as they are today. Not so long ago, new-born babies had a very high mortality rate for any number of reasons. Today this is not the case but all the same we make a big deal for baby’s first birthday.
Then, we not only celebrate birthdays for the people who are alive but we also commemorate the birth of long dead people in our history. We remember the birth of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr. as a nation. In my family, we remember Grandma McMacken’s birthday by eating Cheerios with Sugar for breakfast and her 4-Hour Beef Stew for dinner. Birthdays are important to us as a nation, as a culture, as families, and as Christians.
Tonight we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus tomorrow and celebrate Him. We commemorate Him, and His life on earth, as described to us through the Scriptures but we also celebrate Him as actively present with us because He lives.
Don’t miss this fact; we celebrate God’s grace to us in the human form of Jesus who died on the Roman Cross, but He was raised back to life on the Third Day. This Christmas, Jesus is most definitely alive and with us via the Holy Spirit of God who may not be visible to us in physical form, but He is very much alive and with us.
Tomorrow morning, being Christmas Day, we Christians remember to honor the creator of our salvation and celebrate our God who lives.
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