The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Christ's Mass Pastor Doug Smith Flin Flon Alliance Church What is the big deal about Christmas anyway? Why do we travel hundreds of miles to visit family and friends, have a big feast, exchange presents, and in countless other ways celebrate the birth of one baby? For even those who have no religious background or interest acknowledge that our current celebration derives from the Christ's Mass, a service dedicated to the birth of Christ. But why all the fuss? The answer is found in the Bible itself where we read: "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness." (Philippians 2:5-7) That God would humble himself to become, first a fertilized egg, then a fetus, and finally born a baby is mysterious enough. The risk that He took, the vulnerability of God in a cow trough, being parented by two scared teenagers. It was an inspiration to the few who actually recognized it all the time. It also serves as one of the reasons why the joy of the celebration of his birth continues today even though most have forgotten its significance. In itself, it is a wonderful story of how God came to us in the most literal sense by becoming one of us. He came to give us peace and joy, to let us know that He loved us! But the mystery runs still deeper. Immanuel, "God with us," who was named Jesus, not only humbled himself by being born as a man but "being found in appearances as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:8) His love for us, like all true love, has a cost, and for Jesus that meant death. As the hymn goes, "Amazing love how can it be, that thou my God should die for me!" Jesus was born, lived, died, and ultimately rose again, that we might be returned to fellowship with the Father. Dear people, if that is not a reason to celebrate, I do not know what is! Once humanity sacrificed to the gods, now God has sacrificed Himself for us. The cradle led to the cross in order to complete the statement in Philippians 2:9-11, "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, on heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." May you have a Christ filled Christmas and a blessed New Year.
