“WHAT DOES JESUS WANT FOR CHRISTMAS?” by Ryan Roth

“WHAT DOES JESUS WANT FOR CHRISTMAS?” by Ryan Roth

I love this time of year.  Every Christmas season, I look forward to putting up the tree and hanging the ornaments that tell a story of our life.  One ornament we purchased on our honeymoon in Hawaii with bright red hibiscus on it, another my son made with him on a popsicle-stick sled and a photo cutout of him holding on to it for dear life.  There is even one of Elvis pictured on a guitar from when my wife traveled to Graceland before I knew her.

Other joyful memories of Christmas include clipping the lights to the gutters, receiving Christmas cards in the mail and the smells of holiday sweetness.  What is not to love?  It is a time of family gatherings, huddled out of the cold, with egg nogg and nana’s homemade chocolate oysters. (sounds gross but it’s not what you might think)

Our first year with our son I remember putting him in a Christmas stocking under the tree for a memorable picture, his chunky cheeks sticking out of the top of the red stocking.  Christmas is a memorable time with pictures of everything to help us remember what we love – our beautiful families given to us by God.

This is what my physical Christmas looks like.

For kids and adults, if you asked what the one thing they love about Christmas, they might say Christmas cookies, the Christmas tree, Christmas songs, being together, and so on, but the one thing that would certainly be on that list is… presents.

We make huge lists of presents for the kids and everyone we know.   We endeavor to know what the kids or spouses want for Christmas and that is good.  But do we take the time to think about what does Jesus want for Christmas?  For his birthday?  He is the birthday boy for truly heaven’s sake.  So that is the question I want to answer in the next few minutes with you.  What does Jesus want for Christmas?

I’m pretty sure he isn’t looking for a birthday cake, right?  Although I would love to see a cake with 2,025 candles on it.

Is Jesus looking for wrapped presents?  I highly doubt it, but we sure like them, don’t we?

So, what does He want for Christmas?

I hope the following words help illustrate where I feel the church is at in this moment, and dare I say, to say how our mindset needs to adjust.  We are looking for what Jesus can do for us.  This is a natural desire and one that all children have while growing up in the things of Christ.  The transition is coming.  One where we can say, what can I do for the Kingdom of God?  What can Jesus do through me instead of what can He do for me?

We are very good at receiving.   The challenge with kids is allowing the mental shift from one of wanting to receive to wanting to give.  And if I may be so bold, that’s the challenge with adults too.

So what does the Bible say?  What does Jesus want.

In 1 Peter 5:7, it says to “cast all your cares on him.”  At first glance, these sound like terrible gifts to give Jesus for his birthday.  Giving our burdens to another on Christmas would likely be the worst gift one could give. But Jesus was different.

To understand what Jesus wants for Christmas I think we should talk about the story of Mary and how she allowed the son of God to be birthed through her.  Mary could not believe and could not fully understand what was about to happen to her in the Nativity story.  But I think she knew she was being used by God to bring forth something beautiful.

Gabriel, an Angel of the Lord, spoke to Mary.  He said in Gospel of Luke, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.  You will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son and shall call His name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.  And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

I think every parent would love to hear those words spoken over their child.  Thank you Jesus!    The challenge in what Gabriel said to Mary was that she wasn’t a mother.  If pregnant outside of marriage she would incur devastating consequences.

Traditional Jewish law pronounced a brutal and harsh punishment for women who became pregnant before marriage, saying they were to be “… Brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall charge her.”

She would likely have three options if found pregnant; to reveal the willing father and be forced to marry him, to reveal the man who forced this upon her and be banished together from the city, or to be stoned to death.  It would not have been lost to her of her situation and the difficulty in proving that the Holy Spirit was the father of this child.

Mary was young.  Some estimate between 14 and 16 years old.

While a teenager today has many stresses in life, Mary’s life would be unrelatable in a way.  She almost certainly worked in the fields all day long without a cellphone.   Her boy interactions were arranged by her father and by 16 she was engaged.  Mary was sheltered and protected but her exposure to pain was about to take a turn when it was revealed she was pregnant.

In all of this, when Gabriel spoke to her, Mary responded to the angel with a question and then a statement.  Let’s explore these one at a time.  Her question was, “How could this be since I do not know a man?”  It was a logical question.  Another paraphrasing of the question could be: how can something happen if it is impossible?

Let’s look at the etymology of the name Mary.  Mary came from the Hebrew name Miriam, the first recorded Miriam being the sister of Aaron and Moses.  Hers was a common name meaning both beloved (by the love of her family and God) and bitter (in the bitter oppression the Hebrews faced in Egypt.  Miriam was born in captivity and by her willingness to speak up she helped protect her brother Moses and arrange for her mother to raise him for the daughter of Pharoah.

Mariam was instrumental in the story of the Hebrew people.

Miriam had a song to sing.  When the Hebrew people crossed through the Red Sea, the lord terminated the Egyptian army, covering and killing them in a torrent of water.  On the opposite shore, for the first time in Miriam’s life, she was free of bondage.  She led a song with all the other women and played a tambourine while putting the following words to melody:

“Sing to the Lord,
For He has triumphed gloriously!
The horse and its rider
He has thrown into the sea!”

It was her first song sung while free from the physical bondage of Egypt.  It was a song of victory and liberation.

Mary certainly had heard this song and had sung it as was a tradition in her faith.  Mary and her people could relate with Miriam to life under the rule of others.  The Romans controlled Judeah for the last generation.  Mary’s father might well have remembered playing as a boy free of Roman occupation.  How many times might Mary have heard conversation about this and the way life used to be when Rome’s borders lay beyond their known world, further west around the Great Sea?

Mary didn’t run away when approached by Gabriel.  She didn’t hide.  She was afraid and that is understandable.  She asked a question of how this could be to which the angel said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God … for with God nothing will be impossible.”

Then Mary responds with the following words that I pray we say when presented with challenges that will shift our lives, presented with challenges that require yielding to the Spirit, and challenges that require us to leave our comfort zone.

She said, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

Her life was now of following the Lord and his will.  Through her would come our messiah.

May her words be our words, our prayer, an epitaph etched on our heart.    “Let it be to me according to your word.

My question for today was what does Jesus want for Christmas?  He wants a submissive heart to his will.  But it is much more than that.  He wants us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  He wants us to become like Himself, to be like Christ, to imitate him. He wants everything – our hopes, our dreams, our cares, or worries, our joys, our burdens, our kids, our careers, our marriages, our lives.  The good news for those who give everything is, He, in return gives back abundantly beyond our imaginations.

Elizabeth, when she and Mary were both with child, shared a confirming word of who was growing inside of Mary.  Mary, after greeting her cousin Elizabeth, uttered the following words of her heart.  She had just seen Elizabeth and heard a confirming word from her of who was growing inside of her.

Mary said:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed…

As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed forever.”

God promised Abraham that generations as many as the stars in the sky would come through him.  It was an amazing promise.  There are an estimated 30-200 billion trillion stars in the universe.  And God promised that kings would be in Abraham’s lineage.  The King of Kings, Jesus, is in Abraham’s lineage and we are in this lineage.

I love this time of year.  I love this season.  I love that the God we serve will make Himself a little lower than the angels to be birthed into this world every day through us.  When He plants a seed within us, when He tells us to stand, when He tells us to do something that doesn’t make sense in our worldly understanding, I pray we say, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”

And may the family of God say together.   “Let it be to us according to Your Word.”

Let us not curse the challenges that God allows in our lives.  Let us embrace His word.  Where He moves, I will go.  When He speaks, I will respond.  I am able to respond.

We in Father’s Heart are a family of promise.  We do not doubt the love He has for us.  We will lay down our individual ministries and dedicate ourselves to following the will of God as He leads us all forward.

Let it be to us according to Your Word.

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Ryan Roth is Administrator/Pastor of Active Living Ministries in Appleton, WI. You can contact Ryan at ActiveLivingMinistries@gmail.com