There are many bloggers out there that could probably put this more eloquently, but here is my effort to conceptualize what Christmas really means.
Obviously even secular (nonreligious) sources point out the tendency for Christmas to become about presents and seemingly meaningless activities and events. Dr. Seuss’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas provides a welcome critique on how Christmas should not be about commercialism but about family and togetherness. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol also reminds us of our need to extend charity and love to our fellow men. Yet these wonderful stories fall short of the true meaning of Christmas.
If you’ve seen the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, you’ve heard Linus quote Luke 2:8-14.
Yet this is only the beginning of the Christmas story. The birth of Jesus is only the beginning of a story whose climax is here:
This is what Christmas is all about. Not about Jesus being born, but in the fact that He came as a baby to die for our sins.
“”For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”
(John 3:16-17 NASB)
R. S. Gullett 