What is Christmas About?
Imagine you could only use one word to answer that question. What would you write?
Maybe it would be: Jesus, Messiah, or Emmanuel. Maybe for some Christmas is the season of Joy, Hope, Love, or Gifts! Perhaps due to experience, you now dread Christ-mas because of family drama, holiday stress, or endless Claxton fruitcake! (I used to love that fruitcake, but I can no longer eat it for medical reasons!)
All of the above might be a way to describe Christmas. I’ve added a new word to my list, and I want to share with you.
But first, consider a gigantic number: 80,213,066.
Spelled out, that’s eighty million, two hundred and thirteen thousand, and sixty-six. That’s a lot. So………what does Christmas Day have to do with that number?
Maybe it’s the number of times you’ve watched A Christmas Story – Scrooge!
Maybe it’s the number of times you’ve decided to not watch the film It’s a Wonderful Life.
Maybe it’s the number of Christmas songs played on your local radio between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
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This number – 80,213,066 – is the total amount of dollars that came through the movie theater box office on Christmas Day in 2017. Which at first glance, isn’t that interesting. But a more interesting question to consider is, why would all that money spill into Hollywood on a religious holiday? It turns out there are good reasons why people like to watch movies on Christmas Day.
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Deep within each of us is a longing to hear a good story. And in the season of Christ-mas, the Gospels tell the greatest story in the world. But because of overfamiliarity, triviality, and ignorance, we often leave the depths of the Nativity story unexplored, instead settling for cheesy Hallmark movies, shallow Christmas services, and consumer spending to define for us the meaning of Christmas. Which leads us back to the open-ing question: What is Christmas about?
As promised, here is my answer. Christmas, in one word, is about………bread. It’s hidden in plain sight on the first pages of the New Testament. Think about bread through these three words: Jesus, Bethlehem, Manger.
Jesus said in John’s Gospel – I am the Bread of Life! Those who feast on Jesus will not go hungry!
Second, consider the town Bethlehem. Bethlehem is a compound word in Hebrew. Bethlehem = bet + lechem. Bet means house and lechem means bread. Bethlehem, therefore, means “house of bread.”
Finally, consider the word manger. Mangers are not wooden beds filled with pillows in the form of hay. A manger in the time of Jesus was cut from stone and served as a trough to hold feed for animals. In the cold winter months, animals and mangers were sometimes placed within the front section of the home.
So:
The bread of life. . .
was born in the house of bread. . .
and placed in a feeding trough. . .
to satisfy the hunger of every human heart.
That is the meaning of Christmas. We must never settle for less. We don’t need new stories from Hollywood on Christmas Day. Instead, we must re-claim the ancient depth and wonder of the Jesus story. Christ, our Savior, is the bread of life. So, joining the chorus of our spiritual ancestors, “let us keep the feast!”
Blessed Christmas Bread to you and yours!
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+PD