Bring on the Christmas pudding!

Christmas.

What is it? What does it mean? What does Jesus have to say about celebrating His birthday on this time of the year? Let’s take this time to read up on what is going on.

For some of us, Christmas is about a time of celebration of something. Sometimes, a lot of us do not even know what it is that we are celebrating. We came up with our parents celebrating it and we just followed suit. Some of us see Christmas as a time for togetherness and family. A time to relax and show our appreciation for one another by telling them, giving them presents and feeding them at their houses. Perhaps a time for giving to the community; maybe feeding the homeless or visiting children’s homes. Whatever it is, people are sure not to miss Christmas.

Where I come from in Barbados, Christmas is a time for taking all the hard-earned money that you have accumulated during the year and blowing it like an addict blows cocaine. For those of them that do not have money, they borrow and take out loans and get themselves in a heap of debt just so they could join the hundreds of thousands of Barbadians in the hectic days of shopping before the big day. By the way, not all Barbadians are like that. Some of us see Christmas as a time of remembering the greatest gift from God but we will get to that later. The ones in town, on the other hand are the ones that amaze me the most. As to how you can fit over one hundred thousand persons on two roads, 100ft each, amazes me greatly. As this is my blog, you have two choices. One, you can sit there and read my opinion or you can go back to your boring Facebook timeline where you already know that nothing has happened since you opened the new tab.

I hate going in town. I go when I need to and that’s the only time. At all costs, I avoid the area. That’s just me. I’m not telling you to do the same nor am I looking on those who go. From a child, town was the place that always repelled me and even now, as a young adult, I find that no matter in which direction I go or in which street, it seems to me that the majority of Barbados is going the opposite direction. This causes me to be weaving and bopping and ducking through all manner of people, some of which have been in town from morning and are all sweaty and greasy like Legendary Fishcakes. For those of you who haven’t noticed, Christmas shopping season usually starts from September 30^th. For those of you who have, you should be chuckling at least because you know it’s true.

What is it that they buy when they go town and what are they buying them for? From what I’ve observed, they are gifts that are bought for the children of people we do not like so that they could be under the impression that we like them so that they could buy us gifts for our children that we could believe that they are falling for the same trick with which they are tricking us. This whole deceptive cycle does not apply to everyone, though, hence the beginning of sentence two of this very same paragraph. Luckily, amidst the deception of the adults, the children are showered with gifts, things that they asked for and even things that they did not have to ask for, they get. Everything can be a gift, from toys and clothes for the middle and upper-middle class to bling and gear for the others. (to avoid being called prejudice, I won’t specify which class I was thinking about)

Speaking of gifts, there is one gift in particular that is the most special gift to me.  For those of you who are not as spiritually inclined as most, still read though I wouldn’t mind if you switched tabs to see that someone you don’t know has invited you to play a game on FB that you have no interest in; neither them or the game. In fact, I’ll wait……………………………………………..okay enough waiting. This special gift that I’m going to talk about now was foretold by a guy named Isaiah. This gift is something that men have sought throughout the ages, from King Tut, to Vegeta. Eternal life. Everyone who wants anything in life knows that if they were to die, they cannot enjoy the things that they have. Wealthy men like Mr.Simpson, that could afford to buy out a HOTEL for his children know that one day they will die. People leave wills in place so that they could still have power over their possessions after they are dead. But what if they didn’t? what if there was a way for people to live and not die. Eternal life is the wish of all who walk this earth. The ability to be forever laughing, travelling, eating and drinking…for some, like my Cuban friend and my Honourable friend from St.Peter…forever being in power is something that would put a smile on the face of any who think of it.

God, the Almighty Creator of the heavens and Architect of the cosmos, took it upon Himself to have pity on the specks of dust, whose lives are but a vapour. He saw that man was dying and that the world he was living on was cursed because of the filth that man has brought upon it by his own actions. He, being love itself, did the only thing love could do, sacrifice Himself for us and take the punishment for what we did. If God, whose words alone put the galaxies in place (funny how I more use that word to mean phone as opposed to a set of planets) says that the greatest love of all is laying down your life for your friends (John 15:13), then it has to be true. Never mind the recently deceased singer who says otherwise, the grass may whither, the flower may fade but the words of the Lord will stand (said by the same Isaiah in ch.40 v 8). Simply put, the great gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. Yes, I said it: Eternal life is available for all who choose to accept Him. Christmas is about celebrating that gift and specifically how it got here.

God makes sure that there is no ambiguity or doubt in this whole plan of His. He sits Isaiah down and talks to him about the plan. The plan is that he is going to send His son in the form of a human, in the lowliest of circumstances known to man, a barn. This would be a tad convenient for some persons I know because when their mother says “turn back off the lights, were you born in a barn?” it would be nice to be able to say “as a matter of fact...I WAS!!!”  Anyhow, God tells Isaiah that the world would not accept Jesus because there was nothing about him that was appealing enough for us to consider him the son of God. (Is. 53:2)

Even though we celebrate Christmas in December, it’s not when Jesus was born. I’m not saying this as controversial Christian, I’m saying this as a person that likes to make people think about the things of God. Now think, remember the song we sang at school. “While shepherds watched their flocks by night all seated on the ground, the angel of the Lord came down and glory shone around”. Here is the part where we apply our common sense (brace ourselves, people). Who do you know in their right minds, sit on the ground in the middle of winter? Who do you know that keeps sheep out in the open with snow out? That does not seem to make a whole heap of sense to me. December 25^th is merely the celebration date and not the actual date. I’m not going to go into any details about the whole Pagan thingamabob because, I’ll lose my readers, and I know that I have lost a few already because this blog is quite lengthy, plus I have mentioned spiritual things. That tends to discourage some readers.

Another thing that is quite funny is that people believe that there were three wise men. [some of you just said “oh dear”] The Bible mentions three gifts but who is to say that five people brought gold, seven brought frankincense and one person brought myrrh? These are just minor things that the belief of either one or the other has no benefit or detriment to one’s salvation. This means that if you are a Christian, you are not going to be sent to hell because you thought there were three wise men.

As I approach my conclusion, we spoke about the foretelling of Jesus’ birth, we spoke about the true meaning of Christmas but there is still a question that needs to be answered: why is it important? Yea, we know that Jesus came to save us from hell and blah blah blah but why did he have to come down? Why could he not do it from on High? Why did he have to diminish Himself as low as human status just to do something that could have been done by the snapping of a finger from the Almighty?

As the more perceptive of you would have realised by now, there is sin in this world, a lot of it. It came here because of Adam and Eve. To divulge on that now would be another four hours of discussion. The rule from the beginning was this: without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. Meaning, blood must be spilt in order to appease the Most High. This is the reason we have the big bunch of sacrifice rules in the beginning of the Bible given to the Isrealites, so they could do the right sacrifice for the sin they committed. God looked and saw that the time for sacrifices will come to an end. He knew that His love extends to everyone and that not everyone could afford to sacrifice a sheep or a bull. Most of us don’t know what a turtledove looks like, but we have the same access to His love.

But you see, the blood had to be of the best. Only the best sheep of the flock could be sacrificed, a sheep without spot or blemish. That is why the Lord had to come down in human form, among his own sheep, so to speak, because all the other sheep had spots and blemishes seeing that all had sinned and all had the curse of sin which was paid with death. We were all born in sin and that is why Mary was not impregnated by Joseph but by the Holy Spirit, because if he was born from man and not from God, he would have been born in sin just like the rest of us.

The Lord God of Love could not sit there and watch us die for it is not His will for us to perish but that all should come to repentance. He gave His life for us. He had to die for us so He would not have to live without us. He had to do it himself, the greatest sacrifice, the greatest gift of all... the greatest love of all...