CHRISTMAS (a noun)

We're almost there.

Can you feel the pull?

The nonstop anticipation. You frantically check off your to-do list. You panic over the final touches.

All the while various body parts, particularly your eye lids (when did they get so heavy?) seem determined to turn you into a bobble head.

In just a couple of hours it will be Christmas Day.

If you look at the word *Christmas*; what comes to mind?

- Santa Claus? Presents? Maybe that one weird gift you never talk about...

I decided to look up the official definition of Christmas.

Christ • Mas

noun

1. 1. the annual Christian festival celebrating Christ's birth, held on December 25 in the Western Church.

Now say what now?

It doesn't say anything about waiting up all night (insert yawn here) for a jolly man in a red suit.

It doesn't make mention of presents.

It doesn't even mention being a nice person.

All it says is that it's a Christian festival celebrating Christ's birth on December 25th. The day we know as Christmas.

Wow.

Some might view that as anticlimactic.

What we often miss, is that the real reason for the season (and yes I will be that cliché) is the most exciting climax in the world's history book that we will ever encounter.

There is a God. In fact He is the Lord of All Creation.

And He created everything from the single celled organisms, to the human brain, to the thousands of galaxies we can only dream about, and beyond.

I won't turn this into a mini Bible lesson. I won't go on for much longer (sleep is only 1 hour 12 minutes 25 seconds away!).

However I think everyone deserves to know something. Even if they don't want to remember it as soon as they leave church.

That something, is that God became man. God sent his only Son to save mankind from a world of hurt. A world of their own making. That's what we created.

Humans have this tendency to look at only the worst possible side of the story. Or ignore the problems that don't affect us and move through life in an ignorant, deliberate, kind of bliss.

What we should look at is both. We need to be aware of what's going on outside our personal bubble of space.

I always avoid the news because it makes me sad. But what I don't remember is that there will and already has been a rescue mission successfully conducted.

God's Son, Jesus (remember that guy from the Christmas definition?), saved us from having to pay the price for the misery we dole out day to day.

So I guess I should take back what I said earlier.

The definition of Christmas does mention at least one present.

The birth of Christ Jesus. The person, who was both God and man, who stooped low in the dust of the earth to grant us Salvation.

We have the choice to accept His gift.

I believe that that is a far more worthy reason to say "Merry Christmas!" to everyone you meet; than waiting for Santa Claus to come down your chimney.

Merry Christmas!!!