This is Christmas: not the tinsel, not the giving and receiving, not even the carols, but the humble heart that receives anew the wondrous gift, the Christ.”
                    –Frank McKibben

       “And I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you.  I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new obedient heart.”
                    –Ezekiel 36:26 (NLT)
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Murders, hatred, bitterness, racism and everyone is looking for excuses, trying to rationalize it in some fashion, or blaming others.  Fix this, fix that, and it will all be better.  Give them better housing, give them free food, give them, give them, give, give, give.  But no, that is not the answer.  Anything man tries to do is only like putting a band-aid on a cancer.  “The basic problem of the human race is sin and guilt–a real moral guilt, not just guilt feelings, and a real moral sin, because we have sinned against a God who is there, and a God who is holy,” so wrote Francis Schaeffer.
     Sin, a term that is not to be used today, but it is the problem.  People bemoaning their condition, when the root of it is sin.  Think of the time when Jesus was born.  “Three-fifths of the world was in slavery.  The clanking of chains could be heard and slaves–human beings–were bought and sold as oxen, and they were beaten and bludgeoned and killed without hesitation or compunction.  There was a law among the Imperial Romans, that if a man killed an ox–just an animal–the death penalty followed for such an awful thing, but if he killed a slave, his fellow man, it was passed by and nothing thought about it.” (George Truett)  This was the world into which the holy Child was born.  Think of what happened right after the Wise Men came–Herod had the babies in the region of Bethlehem killed.
     Children were not often welcome in a home at that period.  They were regarded as a burden, they were in the way in many cases, and they were just another mouth to feed, especially if the child were female.  (Truett)  A woman was little better off than a slave.  She was a burden-bearer, not a homemaker.  Think of what women are doing with their “freedom” today, they are again choosing slavehood in Islamic beliefs and countries or they are choosing slavery to career, clock, and gain. Truett said, “How can any woman keep from loving Christ, can keep from bowing before Him, from accepting Him as Lord and Master, is a deeper mystery that I can understand.  The supreme champion of womanhood is Christ!”  Read the Gospels and dare to find a place where Jesus spoke harshly to a woman.
     How do we live like we are supposed to live?  By ignoring sin?  By deleting the term from our vocabulary?  By hiding our heads in the sand, saying that sin doesn’t exist.  Man is the solution to his own problems.  “Christ gives us the right perspective, the right estimate, the right measure of a human being,” (Truett) and He begins by calling us to repentance.  Man is eternal and cannot solve eternal problems.  Do not let the devil confuse your mind and thoughts.  Enjoy Christmas, think of Jesus coming as a baby, don’t get caught up in the false hubbub of the season.  Celebrate, but mindfully.  Understand that the Babe in the manger was God in the flesh.  The Incarnation, oh what a glorious mystery!  Never forget that “Jesus had to be fully human to step in as our substitute and sacrifice, and fully God to make that sacrifice count for eternity.” (James Merritt)
     As man looks for answers, as he sometimes declares that he has the answer, know this–the answer was given to us that day long ago that we celebrate on Christmas.  When you hear “give, give, give,” understand that the Gift has already been given.  God sent His Son to take care of sin, not place a bandaid on surface problems.  Why do people reject this wondrous Gift?  John tells us, “This is the verdict:  Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (3:19-21, NIV)

Everytime we love, everytime we give, it’s Christmas.”
                    –Dale Evans Rogers

       “Give, and it will be given to you.  They will pour into your lap a good measure–pressed down, shaken together, and running over.  For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”
                    –Luke 6:38 (NASB)
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Materialism!  That’s all Christmas has become.  It’s all been commercialized.  Bah Humbug!  Yes, there is that aspect of materialism and commercialism at Christmas.  The businesses will try to sell their wares and the consumers, well, it is up to them whether or not to buy.  One thing for sure, as Bob Welch points out, “Materialism shackles us to self.  It diverts our attention from the things that matter most:  our faith, our families, and our fundamental responsibility to help those less fortunate.  It promises much but delivers little.”  People end up loving things that cannot love back, or loving the money in which to buy things.
     It is important to realize that you cannot purchase joy and happiness, and it is bought only for the moment.  In fact, the buying can become a sort of idol.  Some get caught up in the idea that they can purchase love.  Buy the most expensive gift, the most gifts, or the best gifts.  That will only produce a pseudo-love.  A false love that will haunt throughout the life if it is not stopped.  I knew of a man who in his business made $50,000 a week, but in the process lost the time with his family, which ended in divorce and his two kids on drugs and serving jail time.  Which ended up costing more?
     Then we have the other side–Scroogism, I’ll call it.  The love of money so dear that it is not spent, but hoarded.  Bah Humbug!  Welch writes in his book about Dicken’s, “A Christmas Carol, “I wonder how many people, at the end of their lives, wind up regretting that they lived to work instead of worked to live.”  Perhaps you’ve heard the little quip, “Nobody, on his deathbed, ever says, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.'”
     Someone said that, “Joy is having all you want before unwrapping a thing.”  We are to be proper stewards of the time, the resources, and yes, the money that God has given us.  It is not to hoard, but is to be enjoyed within a proper setting and within proper bounds.  Giving is not wrong, but making it the sole purpose, such as, “I’ll give for their love,” is definitely moving along the wrong track.  To not give is entirely wrong as well.  As Christians we are to be giving people as our heavenly Father is giving.
     In other words, keep a proper balance.  Enjoy the wonder of the season, just don’t let your mind get off the true Gift that the season is for.  This wonderful season, this time of year should not come only in December but should be found in us all year long.  Wilfred A. Peterson reminds us as he was reminded, “Christmas is not in tinsel and lights and outward show. The secret lies in an inner glow. It’s lighting a fire inside the heart. Good will and joy play a vital part. It’s a higher thought and a greater plan. It’s the glorious dream in the soul of man.”  Joy to the World!  Let that be your theme.  Don’t give with wrong motives, or overgive, but on the other hand do not be like Scrooge whom Dickens wrote, was as “Solitary as an oyster.”

The only key out of that jail is truth.”

The mystery of Christmas therefore lays upon us all a debt and an obligation to the rest of men and to the whole created universe.”
                    –Thomas Merton

       “My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him.”
                    –Psalm 62:5 (NKJV)
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I like the story that William J. Petersen wrote, “According to an old story, a traveler walked into a country store in the hills of Kentucky one wintry day in 1809 and asked, ‘Anything new happen around here lately?’  The proprietor almost laughed.  ‘Around here, stranger?  Nothing happens around here.  A baby was born in the Lincoln cabin last night; that’s all.’  Who knows the eventual impact of a life?”
     We all need to grasp hold of that truth.  Who knows who your life might have influenced?  Who knows what you might still do in the remaining years of your life?  Simeon knew the value of one life.  We see this in his hymn found in Luke 2.

          “And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.  And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.  So he came by the Spirit into the temple.  And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said: (25-28)
          29 — ‘Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word;
          30 — For my eyes have seen Your salvation
          31 — Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples,
          32 — A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.’
And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him.  Then Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother, ‘Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of man in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.'” (33-35, NKUV)
   
     A song from his heart, and then a prophecy regarding the Child.  Mary and Joseph had brought the baby Jesus to the Temple when He was eight days old, fulfilling the requirements of the law of Moses.  Simeon took the Child, sang a little song, then gave a stunning prophecy.  “He was standing at the turning point of all history, and he knew it.” (Petersen).
     Simeon told it straight.  Looking at Mary he said that Jesus would be the cause of whereby many will fall.  Think of it!  As Barclay said, “It is not so much God who judges a man; a man judges himself; and his judgment is his reaction to Jesus Christ.”  There will be a great refusal as well as a great acceptance.  The great choice of life:  choose Jesus and enter into the Kingdom, reject Him and enter into condemnation.  Jesus is the cause by which many will rise.  It is Jesus who offers His hand to lift “a man out of the old life and into a new one, out of the sin into the goodness, out of the shame into the glory.” (Barclay)  He will meet much opposition.  “Towards Jesus there can be no neutrality.” (Barclay)
     Mary was told that she would experience great sorrow as a result of her Son.  Man’s heart would be revealed, and now the rest of history hangs in the balance of accepting Christ or rejecting Him.  This season, celebrate the entry of Jesus into the world and all that it means.  Know that your life can never be the same since that day so many years ago–acceptance or rejection, the choice is yours, mine, and everyone else’s.  Because of Jesus, nothing else will ever remain the same.  One more little side note, that I’m sure that Simeon realized.  His death was now imminent.  When he held the Child, I’m sure the truth of the Spirit came to him.  But it was a gloomy time for Simeon, we see that in his song, and as G. Campbell Morgan states, “For Simeon to hold that baby in his arms was to have death revealed to him, not as dissolution, but as emancipation.  The great and glorious fact that would emerge was that Christ has abolished death.”

               “Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown
               When thou camest to earth for me;
               But in Bethlehem’s home there was found no room
               For they holy nativity:
               O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,
               There is room in my heart for thee.”
                          –Emily E.S. Elliott