Is Christmas a children's celebration? 

Yes, but in what way is that true?

It always amazes me how many and beautiful are the familiar Christmas carols, telling as they do the glorious truth represented by our annual celebrations. They give a wonderful hope to our dark world. As someone else has said, like snow drops prophecy the coming of Spring, so the Christmas story points us forward to that great glory that shall appear for all the world at the end of the age. May we be those who are then found to be `walking in the light', having opened our lives to that Eternal Light that came into our dark world.

The Apostle John tells us:
`The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.'

It certainly was a dark world into which the Lord came.
  • The Roman empire was suffering moral collapse with all the attendant suffering that goes with that.
  • Judah and Jerusalem were governed by a cruel vassal of the Empire - Herod - who thought nothing of the murder of little children to protect his power.
  • Later in the century the nation of Israel was completely destroyed - its name only living on in the hearts and minds of the scattered Jewish people.
  • Later in the same century the infant Christian Church, with no earthly power or wealth, was cruelly persecuted by the powers of the Empire. And yet, just as prophesied by our Lord - its message would reach the ends of the earth.
In our own 20th and 21st Centuries, when more people are being killed for the name of Christ than in all the other centuries put together, it is expanding faster than ever before in all its history. The light has shone in the darkness and the darkness has not extinguished it.

In today's conflicts the lives of children seem so cheap. In some places they trained to be used as bombs to blow up other young people and are promised a paradise after they have been sacrificed. (I am reminded how, all over the world, ancient paganism used child sacrifice to appease its gods). Crime against children especially for supposedly religious purposes is one of the most heinous crimes mentioned in the Bible.

Yet we cannot just criticise others. In Britain the innocence and happiness of children is sacrificed for the lusts of the powerful adult world. One of Christ's strongest warnings about hell is directed at those who lead children astray.

The message of Christmas is that our human lives are of enormous value to God.  He has stooped to our level (even the level of our childhood) so that we might know Him, and that He might bear away the sins of the world. It is the value God has put on human life - that we see in the conception, birth, childhood, later life, ministry, sufferings, death and resurrection of Jesus - that alone can be the source of basic values.

Millions of our children who have been deprived of Bible teaching will nevertheless be singing the wonderful Carols this Christmas time. We must pray that their beautiful and telling message will reach hearts and minds and prompt many to seek the Lord who loves all that He has made.

Christmas is the beginning of the New Creation.
At the first Creation when `darkness was over the face of the deep', the Spirit of God was moving over the waters. The Spirit then brought to birth the wonders of the world of nature that we see all around us today. That same Holy Spirit moves in the hearts of people today - transforming darkness to the light of Christ.

This comment comes with the good wishes from me and all my family.
May all who read this have a very happy Christmas. We especially remember this Christmas those many overseas students at our university who will be separated from their families and closest friends. For some, Christmas is a lonely and sad time. To all such we send our special good wishes. May the light of the Lord shine in all your hearts.

Howard Taylor.

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