The Main Thing (Christmas)

“…a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”  Luke 2:11 (NIV)

             Begin with a Christmas morning scene.  A young boy is unwrapping presents.  He begins to unwrap, one by one, accessories of a gaming system (controllers, games, etc.)  With each gift he gets more excited.  He proceeds to open the final gift—a box about the size of a console.  Much to his dismay, the box is empty.  He is terribly upset and concludes that all the other gifts are meaningless without the console. 

             How would you feel if this happened to you on Christmas morning?  What if you got everything to go with the gift you really wanted except the main gift itself—a helmet without a bicycle, a toy stroller and little clothes but no doll, a keyboard and mouse but not the new computer you asked for?  You’d probably be pretty upset.  You might feel sad, or like you got cheated.  That would be because you didn’t get the main thing—the BIG gift. 

            Right after Christmas, lots of people in our country get depressed.  They may even have received the gift they asked for, but they still get depressed.  They feel very sad because all the lights are gone, the tree is put away, the parties are over and they still feel like they missed something.  They feel like they got everything except what they were really looking for—real joy. 

            Christmas is a time when we choose to celebrate Jesus’ birth.  We choose to celebrate the fact that He came to earth to be born as a baby, live a perfect life and die for our sins.  We rejoice that He is our savior and we can have eternal life because of Him.  That is the greatest gift of all.  And everything else that comes with Christmas—the lights, songs, decorations and even the gifts—it’s all meaningless without Jesus.  Without Him it’s as empty as this box (hold up box from skit).  Without Him it’s just a celebration of winter snow (in Florida?!) and a made up jolly old man.  Jesus is the reason for the season.  He gives us a real reason to celebrate.