True Meaning of Christmas?

One of the ironies of the Christmas season is how often people chime in on ‘the real meaning of Christmas’ and then proceed, in my opinion, to get it wrong. For example, ‘Christmas isn’t all about shopping and getting, it’s about family and traditions….’ While I agree that quality family time is way more important than shopping and getting stuff, that’s not the same as saying that it’s the real meaning of Christmas.

The true meaning of Christmas has to do with Christ, right? It has to do with who Jesus Christ was and is, why he came, what he said, what he did, what he accomplished, and what it means when the Bible calls him the Savior, who is Christ/Messiah, the Lord.

And since the Bible is the inspired, infallible source for all we can truly know about Christ in his person and saving work, a focus on the true meaning of Christmas will mean a careful, comprehensive look about what the Bible, centering on the Gospel accounts of his birth, says about him. The true story of Christmas is told in the opening chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (with all their connections with Old Testament prophecies and with New Testament explanations of their meaning).

So I thought I’d do some blog posts about the true meaning of Christmas – I could have said ‘meanings’ since there is so much that the Bible says, but maybe we can think of it in terms of the rich variety of the aspects of the meaning of Christmas, once we agree that the true meaning of Christmas is the coming of the Christ.

More to come soon....