Mark Dever of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington D.C., gets us thinking about Christmas
It was just a few days until Christmas, and Tom had looked long and hard for a gift for Sarah.
Finally, he thought he had found it. Of all places, he discovered it up in the attic. He didn’t quite know what it was, but it was very pretty and he thought it would look nice on the mantel above the fireplace. He took it, put it in his pocket and snuck downstairs.
Later that evening, as Sarah was wrapping presents in the other room, he quietly polished it until it glistened. He wrapped it, added a small bow, and gave it to Sarah the next morning. Sarah was always happy to receive presents at Christmas, and this one she particularly liked. ‘Beautiful’ and ‘just the thing’ were some of the words that came to her lips. Finally, after she had gazed at it enthusing for a few moments, she paused and asked Tom, ‘But what is it?’
Prepared for this question, Tom replied, ‘I thought you might ask that. I’m not entirely sure. I think it is part of some old ornament or pipe or tool or something. It’s a . . . thingamabob. Let’s just call it a thingamabob’.
As she looked at it, and sounding out the words silently on her lips, Sarah hesitated and then said with a smile, ‘OK, it’s a thingamabob. We’ll put it right over here’. A Christmas tradition had been born, and the thingamabob returned to the mantel each and every Christmas.
What Sarah had really wanted for Christmas, however, was at least several hundred pounds more than the thingamabob had cost and several hundred pounds beyond what Tom’s slender salary would allow.
Years earlier, Sarah had been given a beautiful grandfather clock, actually built by her grandfather. It was tall, a bit rustic, but beautifully carved and polished. She had loved this clock for years and year, and what she had really wanted for Christmas this year was for that clock to work again. You see, it hadn’t worked since it had been moved from her grandfather’s house several years before. Friends and neighbours had poked at it, but no one had succeeded in figuring out the problem.
It was a few years later that a most amazing thing happened. Andy, a friend of Tom’s from work, was at their house helping them to set up some Christmas decorations in time for friends coming over later that evening. As he had every time before when he’d come to their house, Andy spent a few moments looking at the clock, opening the door, pulling at this part, pushing at that one.
It was at that moment that Tom bent down and took the thingamabob out of its box. As Tom put the thingamabob on the mantel, Andy stared at it and asked him what it was.
‘Just a thingamabob’, said Tom.
‘Where did you get it?’ said Andy, feeling the object.
Tom told him the story while Andy stood looking at it for a moment, then he said, ‘Do you mind if I try something with this? It might scratch it up a bit.’
Tom looked at him strangely. ‘No’, he said.
‘Help me lay the clock down on its side first’, said Andy.
About an hour later, there was no more thingamabob on the mantel. The thingam-abob was back where it belonged and Sarah’s grandfather’s clock was finally working again.
Christmas celebration
For many people, the celebration of Christmas is a bit like that thingamabob. Found in the attic of family tradition, having some beauty about it, over the years acquiring a certain amount of sentimental attachment, not so useful, but appreciated.
Yet Christmas is not simply a celebration of human birth, with all the mystery, pain, hope and joy there is in that. This is a celebration of one particular birth and, if I could be forgiven for asking, what is the big deal about this birth?
So who is this baby?
The Bible tells us that Jesus is God’s Son, sent by God ‘to be the Saviour of the world’. This is why there is great joy in Christmas. Not just happiness at the thought of the season, the giving and receiving of nice gifts, eating good food and seeing friends and family, but a deep and real joy. Jesus comes with ‘good news that will cause great joy’.
But to answer the question of who Jesus is, we need to consider his adult life as well as his birth in that stable.
Why did Jesus come?
Christians or sceptics, churchgoers or sympathisers, Christmas isn’t for tipping our hats to God. No, we need to come as people who know what it means to be needy — to need a Saviour — and to have found that Saviour in Jesus.
Come with me back to the stable birth. Do you remember the message the angels brought Jesus’s mother Mary? The angel said, ‘You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins’.
This is why there is joy in Christmas because it is in Christmas that we see the coming of our deliverer — Jesus.
All of this from a tiny baby?
We can have long-lasting joy because, as we look at the cradle of Bethlehem, we do so through the cross of Calvary. Baby Jesus held by the wood of a cradle, later is held to the wood of a cross.
We see that this baby grew up and lived a perfect life and died a death in our place as a substitute for us. This baby of Bethlehem was, in a very special way, born to die.
So as you read this, like Tom and Sarah with their thingamabob, are you getting the joy of the Christmas season without knowing what it is that is causing the celebration? You are, as it were, standing at the back of the crowd and enjoying the sensation of people being excited, without knowing why. If that’s you, I want to encourage you to come forward to look at the manger for yourself, to see the shadow of the cross and the thrill of the empty tomb and the joy of knowing your sins forgiven, your relationship with your maker restored. Enjoy the beautiful things around Christmas, thank God for family and friends, warmth and food, fun and presents, but don’t just have Christmas, celebrate the greatest gift of all — Jesus our Saviour.
