1.  Show Video. What is the meaning of Christmas ?

We heard one lady say in answer to that question… FAMILY. It is good to set aside time to be with family. IS your family like those you see on the adverts.  Everybody smiling, children playing contentedly is your home always a place of harmony and peace ?

In fact of course Christmas can sometimes be a time of great stress within families. A husband and wife who have hardly seen each other for the last few months.. together all the time. It’s the first time since the summer that they’ve been with all the children for more than a weekend.  It can be a time of learning to get along with one another… can be a time when people lose their tempers. Certainly it is a time when tensions that have been present within a family for months can come to the surface. So If the Meaning of Christmas is all about enjoying being with family.. then one thing we can know for certain is that some people will be disappointed.

     And what about those who have no immediate family around them. People who will be on their own this Christmas. Or what of those who have lost people they have loved.. parent, husband wife, brother, sister, child. If Christmas is all about being with family… then what does Christmas mean for them? Just a time for sadness, or regret. A time to think “things can never be like they were?”

3. One look at the shops and it is obvious that for many of us the Meaning of Christmas is GIVING. Shops are full of things to give. And the businesses that sell those gifts are very happy to receive our money at this time of year. It is true that businesses take note of the message of the prophets at Christmas time. That is profits spelt profits.. not the prophets whose message we heard read earlier in the service tonight.

Now it is good to give a gift - to anyone. Jesus told us that it is blessed to give… in fact he said it is more blessed to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35 Paul talking to the church leaders of Ephesus.) But if GIVING is the meaning of Christmas… then we will be disappointed.

If Christmas is all about the joy of giving.. well what happens when someone you have given a gift to turns round and tells you they didn’t like it.  Or what happens when despite your frantic searches.. you have been unable to find the thing that you know you wanted to give. You feel such a failure.

And sometimes we can so easily get hung up about the presents we receive. People even compare the presents they have received with the presents that their friends have received - and then feel hard done by if their presents don’t seem quite as good as their friends.

I suppose what I am saying is that ,just as we are likely to be disappointed if we place all our hopes for a happy Christmas in being with family… in the same way we are just as likely to be disappointed if for us Christmas is just about receiving or even giving presents.

We can so easily get things wrong can’t we?

3. Giving and receiving presents, loving others, spending times with others, being with family, enjoying a meal together, enjoying a party together… those can all be great things to do and we can do them anytime of year.

The meaning of “Christmas” is

A PARTY with Jesus.  (Christ-mas)

The word “mas” means a festival p0r a party. In the Caribbean today it is the word used for a “Carnival”

The one thing that can give your Christmas meaning is to know that you  are celebrating it WITH Jesus.

4.  Look at it this way.

The family have not quite lived up to expectations. Maybe there was even a moment or two when you felt a little but hurt or neglected or taken for granted.. whatever… if you are celebrating Christmas with Jesus.. then you know that to him you are precious, special, and he is the one who can help you to keep on loving even when that is difficult.

Or maybe the gift you received was not what you had wanted.. in fact it was nothing like what you had hinted at time and time again. In fact it was SO wrong that it almost made you feel uncared for. Well if you are celebrating Christmas with Jesus then you know that you ARE cared for. You know that you are significant to the creator of the whole universe, and that you are a son or daughter of God because you live in friendship with Jesus. And knowing that you are cared for… makes it possible for you to keep on caring for those around you.

Family.. friends, the things we own, the things we possess… they can all let us down. The one truth we can be sure of at Christmas and at every other time of the year.. is that Jesus won’t  disappoint us. If you don’t know him yet as your friend, as your saviour and as your Lord… then this Christmas could be the year when for the first time you celebrate it with him and put some REAL meaning into your Christ-mas.