I love Christmas!  It’s the one time a year my wife can get me to go shopping and I will be a joy to shop with!  I remember a Christmas years ago when I was a junior in high school. I had heard and seen the need my parents had for a bedroom set & developed a plan. I saved money from my job & was going to meet this need for my parents. I hid everything from them, the savings, the purchase & the delivery.  Then on Christmas Eve when they went to bed, I began to assemble the dresser, the night stands, the headboard & foot board. With each passing hour, the excitement built up more and more to see their faces and see their joy when they got this grand gift.

The next morning we woke my parents up, hurried them to the tree, and began to rip open presents. Now this is the moment… my parents would finally see the gift I had given them, they would realize I had picked out the perfect, unexpected present for them & that it would meet a need they had.

However, my parents didn’t go near the gift. They took a minute or two, glanced at it & said a quick thanks, but they moved us to the kitchen and started preparing for breakfast saying we needed to hurry because we had more people to see & parties to attend. We were too busy to sit & enjoy anything, even a fantastic gift.

Can you imagine?….I was devastated!!

Or I would have been devastated, if this was actually the way my parents had responded. In fact, my parents loved the gift and they expressed their love and appreciation for the thought. The bedroom set is still in being used to this day!

If your first response to this story (before I told you it was only partly true) was anger, frustration or even disbelief that someone could have passed over such a thoughtful & meaningful gift from someone who loves them, I’m with ya!  However, the point I want to make is that this rushed, head nod to a great gift is what I believe we do every Christmas.  Let me explain.

We have a Father in Heaven who saw our desperate situation, our great need & did something about it! He came to us, as a baby to live a life of perfection we could not live, to die a death in our place that we deserved & to pay a debt on our behalf that has bankrupted us since the day we were born & to destroy the death that would have otherwise enslaved us for eternity. Yet on a day that is supposed to celebrate this GREAT & AWESOME gift, we do everything except focus on The Gift & The Giver.

Think of how frustrated, angry or sad you felt as I told you the partially true story of my parents and the bedroom suite. How much more should it frustrate us that this is what is typical for us, for me. The dismal response is OUR response to the God of the Universe pouring out His heart to us in The Ultimate Life-Changing Gift to ever have been offered! This is a tragedy! And if we do not purposely do something different, it will not change.

In the extraordinary life of Christ, we find a lot of simplicity.  When you think of it, Jesus was born in a simple setting (Luke 2:6-7), to simple parents, had a simple (yet awesome) sign of his arrival (Matthew 2:9-10). The people who came to see the baby had a simple reaction – worship (Matthew 2:11). Just before Jesus began His public ministry, John the Baptist had a simple message to people in preparation for the coming of Christ – Repent & be baptized (Matthew 3:1).  When you think about Jesus call to His disciples, it was simple – Follow ME (Matthew 4:19).  His message in the Great Commission after He rose from the dead was simply, ‘do what I did, make disciples (Matthew 28:19).’ Finally, on the night Jesus would be betrayed, His call, which is a call for us tonight (& everyday)…was simply “Remember ME” (Luke 22:19)

So what is the solution? How do we do this in a culture that promotes complexity, extravagance & selfishness?

Here are some ideas & steps to do in order to orient you Christmas break & your family Christmas around Jesus Christ.  Typically we suggest picking one, but I would offer that if you do all and are intentional with your family as you do each, you will increase the joy of Christmas, because the focus will be on an eternal gift instead of temporal items that will break and fade.

-Take time to spend thanking God for the Ultimate Gift that is found in Jesus Christ.

-Worship together as a family Christmas Eve & Christmas. Fellowship Bible Church has a Christmas Eve service at 6:30 PM, Christmas Morning at 10 AM

-Read the Christmas Story in Luke 2 to your family before you open your gifts.

-Join the Fusion Program & as a family purchase a water filter to provide clean water that will increase the life expectancy & lower the chance of infection & disease.  Click here to see a 40 second video to save a life

-You can also help the Fellowship Student Ministry’s effort to give 5000 meals to starving children, one quarter at a time (we have a jar in the youth room you can drop off change, cash or checks, our goal is $1250 by April!).  This is in partnership with Pitza 42

Overall, simplify Christmas to make it all about CHRIST…I mean, look back to the first Christmas & the life of Christ. When you think about it, Christmas was much simpler back then, but all was focused simply on Jesus and worshiping the King who had come as a baby to redeem His people!  We need to purposely & proactively simplify Christmas, regardless of holiday tradition in order to focus on God’s great gift, His Son, Our Redeemer, Our Hope – Jesus Christ. Then, we will shout from the mountaintops, we can fully sing Joy to the World, because we have received this awesome gift from God & desire to share this joy with our family & the families around the world.  This Christmas, simply Remember Christ, Worship Christ, Focus on Christ!