“Christmas time.”  They are common words and a common concept at the end of December.  Usually they are supposed to denote a super-special and extra wonderful time of year.  Technically, the word “Christmas” translates to “Christ-worship.”  In reality, “Christmas time” actually seems to equate with “crazy-busy time,” leaving very little time for anything else. 

Especially, it seems, for Christ.

There are so many things to do, see, hear, smell, taste and experience during the holiday!  So many attractions and distractions that demand our attention, and we invariably find ourselves distracted by the attractions, and attracted to the distractions.  Obliged by the obligations, consumed by consumerism, overrun by the running – the season of peace tends to be anything but! 

Family and work obligations, attending or hosting holiday parties, tree trimming and special decorations, gift-buying and wrapping, travel time, Christmas cooking and baking, and an assorted menagerie of expectations keep us hopping and not-always-so-happy during what is supposed to be a joyous season. 

It’s a time for exuberance!  Unfortunately, we’re exhausted.

This quantity of typical Christmas doings is not what Christmas is about!  Rather, if we want to do Christmas right, there is only one proper approach.  We must spend quality time at the manger.

Of God’s countless miracles and on-going actions of love, this was undoubtedly the greatest.  Or at least the most significant to sinners who recognize their need for a Savior! 

God himself sequestered himself in a womb for nine months, wrapped himself in flesh, and was born in common fashion.  And not even in top-notch accommodations, but in a smelly cattle stall!  And not to be exalted and honored as the Lord that he is, but to be ignored, rejected and ultimately killed by people he had created and to whom he had given life.

“Christ Jesus … being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!”  (Philippians 2:5-8).

What god is like our God?  What god would be so great in power … and yet so good and so gracious and go to such extremes of love for undeserving people as our God did?  There is no other.  Our God is incomparable in every measure!

“This is what the Lord says — he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; … he says: ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other. … There is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me.’” (Isaiah 45:18 & 21)

With the multiple demands of the Christmas season, may we never forget the magnitude of the love of our God.  It brought him to the manger to rescue a world of people who rebelled against him – the only true God and their very Creator.  Thirty-three years later, he would also become their Savior.  Which is specifically why Jesus was born in the first place.

There is no God like our God; there is no love like the love he demonstrated.

So if we are going to properly observe Christmas, we must worship Christ.  We must spend some time at the manger.  Not out of obligation, but gladly!  Willingly!  Eagerly! 

We come in awe.  We approach in wonder.  We kneel in adoration.  We weep in joy.  Our hearts gush in thankfulness. 

Manger scenes on our mantles or under our trees are wonderful reminders – often precious and beautiful, but always somewhat sterile.  Rather look in the real manger in Bethlehem.  See the mold forming in the corners of the feeding trough and the slobber and spittle left behind from the livestock.  And see the Baby nestled there, wrapped in strips of cloth, sprinkled with bits of straw and hay, and making his tiny baby movements.  He’s real, and he’s really important to you and me.

Christmas is a time of bright adornments.  Ornaments and tinsel on trees; wrapping paper on presents; candy sprinkles on cookies and cakes.  Pass them by and kneel in the dirt, straw and dung beside the manger.  The Baby we see there doesn’t look all that special, but there has never been a more special Child or a more beautiful sight.

Holiday lights are eye-catching.  But go to the manger and look upon the Light of the World.

Most can’t imagine Christmas without a tree.  Cast your eyes on Jesus’ manger, and recognize the shadow of the cross … the “tree” … that hangs over it. 

Christmas music is beloved.  But sidle up to the manger and the shepherds gathered there and listen to their description of the angels’ praises to a God who sent his Son to rescue the lost.

Presents will be given by us and to us.  We’ll buy them, wrap them and open them.  But peer into the manger and see the first and greatest Christmas Gift of all. 

Many relationships are treasured and enhanced at this time of year.  But step into the stable and have your heart warmed by the gurgling of God’s Son, lying in love in the manger … born solely to save us. 

With all the busyness of the holiday season, certainly take time for worship at your church.  Greet God’s people there and glorify God.  Sing the hymns and hear God’s Word.  It is good for us to be there!  Important even!  But while there, may the worship take us to the manger, and God’s Son resting on the hay inside it.  Because it’s not being in churches that is most important at Christmas time.  It’s being beside Jesus’ “cradle;” it’s bowing at Jesus’ manger.

Christmas.  “Christ worship.”  There’s nothing like spending time at the manger to foster our adoration of our God who loves us so very much that he would be found there.