I had two experiences this week that reminded me of why Christmas matters.  When you read these two stories you may not see what their connection to Christmas is. It didn’t strike me until later how the Christmas story and my experiences are related. 

A sixteen-year-old in our community was killed recently in an auto accident that wasn’t his fault.  I had agreed to meet with the grieving mom at her house at a certain time to prepare photos of her son for display at his memorial service.  In God’s providence, the family had been convinced by dear Husband to come to me for family portraits about four months ago.  (I’m a photographer.). Their sixteen-year-old son stole my heart immediately and because he was so mature, I mistakenly assumed he was going into his senior year of high school.  Because of this assumption, I took extra individual photos of him so they would have ‘senior pictures’ to commemorate his last year of high school.  I’m so glad I made this error!  He was, in fact, only 16 years old.  But now his grieving family has recent portraits of their beloved son.

I went to their house with a heavy heart, trepidation, and many prayers.  I didn’t want to go to pieces and drag the mom down.  I didn’t want to be superficial either.  God answered my prayers in such a beautiful way.  When the mom opened the door, there to my surprise were two friends from my church!  They had come to bring her family a whole boxful of presents.  Several of them had gotten together and bought presents so that the surviving sons would have a gift to open each day of Advent.  Their hearts of love overflowed with generosity!  Not only were two of my friends already there, but two other ladies from another church were also there.  The atmosphere was vibrating with love and deep joy.  I let out a quiet sigh of relief.  The Lord was here with his gracious gifts of friendship.  We laughed and cried together.  And we prayed.  A lady who was slated to sing at the memorial service was scheduled to fly home from Peru only a day prior to the service.  I had to open my big mouth and share that one of our daughters was stuck in Ecuador after her flight home was canceled earlier this week.  Way to go!  My negative statement hung in the air like a grey cloud.  Not one to give in to worry, one of the ladies immediately said, “Let’s pray about that.”  We joined hands and each of us prayed about the flight, the memorial service, the grieving family, all the things that were heavy on our hearts.  What a relief to together take it all and lay it down at the Lord’s feet!

Another sweet reminder of the strong help we get when united in heart and praying for each other happened the next day.  First thing in the morning I got a message from a Christian photographer friend across the country.  She had made a group text to a number of other Christian photogs asking for prayer for wisdom in making good decisions regarding her mother who has dementia.  The outpouring of love, prayers, support, advice, and Scripture was such an encouragement to me.  Ladies from all over the U.S. ‘gathered’ around our hurting sister.

These experiences gave me, besides a warm feeling deep inside, a strong reminder that we are meant to come together.  When we sacrifice our time to love on each other, pray together, laugh together, and give to each other we are doing what we were made to do.  There is such strength in being united.

So what do these heartwarming experiences have to do with Christmas?  Simply this:  without Christmas none of this would have happened.  If the Lord Jesus wouldn’t have come, none of us would have known each other.  The force that binds us together is God’s Spirit.  Without Jesus, all of us would have been ignorant of God, (assuming we weren’t Jewish) without hope and simply living our lives without regard for God.  We would have wanted to be kind to others (hopefully), but without the power to do so. We would have loved those who loved us, but hostile to those who didn’t.  We would have been self-centered, doing whatever made us feel good, putting ourselves first, and ignoring a higher power’s claim on us.

“All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. . . But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)  For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.  So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.  For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. . .  In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope.  But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. 

For Christ himself has brought peace to us.  He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near.  Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.”  Ephesians 2

Did you catch that list of God’s feelings toward us?
Mercy
Love
Grace
Kindness

It’s a good thing, because we were in a sad state:
Choosing and defaulting to doing wrong
Spiritually dead
Unable to earn right standing with God
Outsiders
Living apart from Jesus
Excluded from God’s people
Ignorant of God’s promises
Without God
Without hope
Far away from God

Then think about what he does for us who believe!
He gave us life (daily and in our whole being)
He raised us (from our old, dead way of living)
He seated us with him
He united us with Jesus
He saved us (from ourselves and the devil)
He created us anew (we have new desires and a fresh start each morning)
He brought us near to him
He brought us peace

All this because Jesus humbled himself to be born in a human body to show us the way to the Father.  No wonder we say, ‘Merry Christmas’!

PS. The memorial service was full of hope of eternal life with Jesus, love, and praise to God and for the young man.  The auditorium was completely full of friends, as was the overflow room and people were standing in the back.  Most of those who shared memories during the service were high school friends.  BTW, the soloist made it back from South America.