Did ya’ notice? We skipped the newsletter on Dec. 13th, and this newsletter is a few days late. I’m curious, did you notice we were missing? Sometimes, it is easy to miss the things that you are so used to. They appear every week, or every day (like the Daily Dose), but when it doesn’t show up, you don’t notice.
No matter where you are, you likely encounter many things daily without truly noticing them. This is because our brains are wired to filter out familiar elements of our environment to focus on new and potentially important information. We do this in three ways:
- Inattentional blindness. When we’re not actively looking for something, we may miss it even if it’s right in front of us.
- Habituation: When we’re exposed to something repeatedly, our brains become accustomed to it and tend to ignore it.
- Cognitive load: When we’re focused on other things in life, we may not have the mental resources to pay attention to everything around us.
So in addition to normal daily routines, you know it’s coming … so what else is easy to miss on the daily … Jesus. Yup, Jesus.
Now, let’s repeat this in regards to Jesus: When we’re exposed to something repeatedly, our brains become accustomed to it and tend to ignore it.
As we sit right in the middle of Christmas season, I think we all know how easy it is to miss Jesus. Easy to blindly say, “Jesus is the reason for the season” and be done with it. To not delve into the depths of what this season really means.
This is the beginning. This is when God decided to walk among us as man.
So why do so many people miss the real meaning of Christmas?
How can that be? How can anyone miss Christmas? Because although many celebrate Christmas every year, the majority of people will miss it because the real meaning has become so obscured. For those of us who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, Christmas is a time to focus on His birth. But even we can get caught up in the swirl of activity around Christmastime and can miss it in a practical sense. Satan has so cluttered the Christian concept of Christmas with such needless paraphernalia that its true meaning is easily lost. Strong statement.
A Brief History of Christmas
Most scholars doubt that December 25th is the true date of Christ’s birth. There is no biblical support for it, and some against it. That date was decided upon by the church in Rome in the fourth century. They had a specific reason for doing so.
Many of the earth’s earliest inhabitants were sun worshipers because they depended on the sun’s yearly course in the heavens. Most people held feasts at the time of the winter solstice (mid-December), a time when the days were shortest. They built bonfires to give the sun god strength and bring him back to life again. When it became apparent that the days were growing longer, there was great rejoicing.
The fathers of the church in Rome decided to celebrate Christ’s birth on the winter solstice. It was their attempt to Christianize the popular pagan celebrations. But they failed to make the people conform. Instead, the heathen festivities continued, and we are left with a bizarre marriage of pagan and Christian elements that characterizes our modern celebration of Christmas.
The following examples will give you some idea of how much pagan customs makeup what we know as Christmas.
To the Romans the month of December marked the Festival of Saturnalia (Dec. 17-24). One of their most common customs during that festival was giving gifts to one another. As far as we know that is where the idea of exchanging presents came from. The evergreen wreath also derives from the Saturnalia festival, during which homes were decorated with evergreen boughs.
The Druids of England gathered sacred mistletoe for their ceremonies and decorated their homes with it. It is believed that the first Christmas tree was instituted by Boniface, an English missionary to Germany in the eighth century. He supposedly replaced sacrifices to the god Odin’s sacred oak with a fir tree adorned in tribute to Christ. Certain accounts claim that Martin Luther introduced the Christmas tree lighted with candles.
“Santa Claus” is a contraction of St. Nicholas, a bishop in Asia Minor during the fourth century known for his extraordinary generosity. He was later associated with giving presents at the end of the year. St. Nicholas was adopted by the Netherlands as the patron saint of children. On St. Nicholas eve, the children would leave their shoes filled with hay for the saint’s white horse.
No wonder so many people miss Christmas. The simplicity of the birth of Christ is drowned in a sea of traditions, many being pagan in origin. Even worse than that, when Christ was born in Bethlehem, most people of that day missed it.
Luke 2:7 says, “Mary gave birth to her firstborn Son, and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” The first person who missed Christmas was the innkeeper. He was unable to take in Mary and Joseph because he had no room for them. Apparently, he was indifferent to their plight–there is no indication from Scripture that he called for any help.
Notice that verse 7 says, “She gave birth to her firstborn son.” Mary herself gave birth to Jesus. By herself she wrapped Him in cloths. Joseph was there to help, but if he was anything like most young fathers, he would have been of little help.
Middle Eastern people are hospitable, kind, and caring. They are not the kind of people who would leave a woman alone to have her baby. But in this case, they did. Where were the midwives? You’d think the innkeeper would have known someone who could have helped.
Luke tells us she laid Him in a manger, which is an animal feeding trough. The cloths she wrapped Jesus in were long strips of cloth. Whenever an infant was born, immediately the baby was cleaned. Then the baby’s limbs and body would be wrapped in these swaddling cloths and then wrapped in an outer blanket. That was a duty normally carried out by a midwife. But Mary had to do it all herself.
Commentator G. Campbell Morgan wrote, “Think of the pathos of it. “She brought forth;” “she wrapped Him in swaddling clothes.” It is very beautiful, but oh, the pity of it, the tragedy of it, the loneliness of it; that in that hour of all hours, when womanhood should be surrounded by the tenderest care, she was alone. The method of the writer is very distinct. She with her own hands wrapped the Baby around with those swaddling cloths and laid Him in the manger. There was no one to do it for her. Again I say, the pity of it, and yet the glory of it to the heart of Mary.”
We don’t know anything about the innkeeper because the Bible doesn’t say anything about him. Some commentators speculate that Jesus was born in a stable some think He was born in a cave, and others believe he was born in an open courtyard at the inn. One thing we do know: whatever hospitality Mary and Joseph hoped to find, they found none–they were turned away.
Why did the innkeeper miss Christmas? I think the simple answer is preoccupation. He was busy. (Sound familiar? Have you been there?) His inn was full because a census was being held in Bethlehem. The city was bulging with people whose ancestors came from there. Since Bethlehem was the city of David, all those who were in the line of David were there, including Joseph and Mary. The innkeeper wasn’t necessarily hostile and unsympathetic; he was just busy.
Many people are like the innkeeper. The chambers of their souls are filled with needless things–with stuff that doesn’t matter. As a result, they miss the Christ of God. Our society is filled with the unnecessary, the insignificant, and the meaningless. We spend a fortune to amass things so we can let our children fight over them when we die. And our time is eaten away by the demands our things place on us.
People miss Christ at Christmastime because He is crowded out by a world that dictates what they should think, do, and buy. Like the innkeeper, people today are preoccupied. The innkeeper didn’t know anything about the baby Mary gave birth to, and neither do they. They don’t know who Christ is and they don’t know why He came. Instead, they’re ignorantly preoccupied with the mundane and the meaningless. How sad it is that so many people live their lives in pursuit of such, only to wake up one day in eternity without God.
Luke 2 indicates another group of people who missed Christmas: “in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields, and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them” (vv. 8-9). The angel proclaimed the birth of Christ, and the shepherds went to Bethlehem to see Him. Verse 20 says, “The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.” Out of all the people in Jerusalem, God singled out shepherds to receive the great news about the birth of Christ.
Shepherds were a despised group of people. They couldn’t maintain all the ceremonial washings and activities because they were busy tending to the sheep. Yet no one else from the city came to see the Christ child except these “unclean” shepherds.
So, the mass of people in Jerusalem missed Christmas. The birth of Christ took place only a few miles away. It was the fulfillment of all their dreams and hopes–the event that would change the destiny of the world–but they missed it.
Tonight and tomorrow, we hope and pray you have time to slow down and spend time in the presence of the Lord, thanking Him and resting in His peace.