The Meaning of Christmas (Chantilly)

John 3:16 CSB – For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Christmas Reminds Us: Faith in Jesus is not a Fiction

Luke 2:1-2 CSB – In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empireshould be registered. ² This first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.

Luke 1:1-3 CSB – Many have undertaken to compile a narrative about the events that have been fulfilled among us, ² just as the original eyewitnesses and servants of the word handed them down to us. ³ So it also seemed good to me, since I have carefully investigated everything from the very first, to write to you in an orderly sequence, most honorable Theophilus, ⁴ so that you may know the certainty of the things about which you have been instructed.

Luke 2:1-2 CSB – a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered. ² This first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria…

1 John 1:1-2,4 CSB – What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— ² that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you … We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

John 11:47-48 CSB – “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs? ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him…

I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. Of this text, there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage…or else, someone unknown writer…without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic, realistic narrative…. The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned how to read. – C.S. Lewis

John 1:14,17 CSB – We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

…for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Christmas Reminds Us: No Little People in God’s Story

Luke 1:31-33 CSB – You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. ³³ He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.”

Judges 6:16 CSB – “Please, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Look, my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s family.”

Amos 7:14-15 CSB – “I was not a prophet or the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman, and I took care of sycamore figs. ¹⁵ But the Lord took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’”

Ephesians 2:10 CSB – For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

“I would rather be what God chose to make me, than the most glorious creature that I could think of. For to have been thought about—born in God’s thoughts—and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, most precious thing in all thinking.” – George McDonald,

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

It is a serious thing to live in a society…. to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.

We must play.

But our merriment must be of that kind …. which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.  – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Christmas Reminds Us: We Can Know God (not just know about God)

Luke 2:12 CSB – This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.”

Matthew 1:23 CSB – they will name him Immanuel,

which is translated “God is with us.”

1 Timothy 6:6 CSB says God… ….is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.

Hebrews 1:3 CSB – The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature….

John 1:14 CSB – The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Philippians 2:5-8 CSB – Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, existing in the form of God,

did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.

⁷ Instead he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man,
⁸ he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.

Luke 2:15 CSB – the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”

Hebrews 12:1b CSB directs, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us.

Psalm 4:1 CSB – Answer me when I call,
You freed me from affliction;
be gracious to me and hear my prayer.

Three Responses to Jesus

King Herod—Rejected Jesus

The Crowds—Dismissed Jesus

The Disciples—Followed Jesus

Psalm 138:8 CSB – The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me.
Lord, your faithful love endures forever;
do not abandon the work of your hands.

Acts 13:36 CSB – For David, after serving God’s purpose in his own generation, fell asleep….