Christian Christmas: Christmas In Cyberspace

Are you seeking to connect with the true meaning of Christmas? You’re in the right place. Christmas in Cyberspace is a Christ-centered guide to this sacred holiday, focusing on the spritual nature of our celebration of Christ’s birth and our redemption. Here’s where you can find some of our most popular features:

• The Best Christian Christmas Sites: There are lots of Christ-centered Christmas sites, and you have only so many clicks. Which ones are the most useful? Here’s our list.
• The History of Christmas: What’s the origin of popular Christian practices and traditions we observe during Advent and Christmas? You’ll find many of the answers here.
• Advent Meditations and Devotionals: Our reflections on the Christian experience of Christmas past, present and future. A series of six devotionals perfect for Advent study.
• Christian Christmas E-cards: Are you thinking about someone this Christmas? Why wait for the postman? Send them an e-card to let them know that they’re in your thoughts and prayers.
• Advent Calendars: The Advent calendar is a beloved tradition for Christian children all over the world. Click through for links to online Advent calendars and resources about the history of the tradition
• The Magi: Who were these “wise men” of the Bible? What do we know about them? You can find some of the answers here.

Jesus Is The Reason For The Season!

The Advent and Christmas season is a time to draw near to Christ, opening our hearts and minds to who Jesus is and why He came to live among us on that night in Bethlehem so many years ago.  What does knowing Christ mean today, and what are the implications for our future? We offer the following Christ-centered seasonal meditations for your consideration:

CHRISTMAS PAST:
Gabriel’s World Tour, 6 B.C.

• Zechariah: “Yes, but …”
• Mary: The Bible talked about the Messiah, but not about being the Messiah’s Mom.

CHRISTMAS PRESENT:
Finding the Manger Amidst the Madness of the Mall

• Christmas Cheer: Encountering God in the check-out aisle.
• Switch Seats: Feeling run down? Try a new power source.

CHRISTMAS FUTURE:
Living In Hope

• The Second Advent: We’re waiting for more than Dec. 25.
• A Thousand Years Are Like A Day: We don’t know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future.

We hope these meditations will bless you and your family this Christmas season!

“For God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, that whosoever believes in Him may never perish but have eternal life.”

Christmas is not simply a national or world holiday. It is a deeply personal event for every Christian. Being a “Christian” is not about just about observing a holiday or going to church or trying to live a good life. These are certainly worthy endeavors, yet can be pursued without any definitive spiritual connection to Jesus Christ. Being a “Christ-ian” means following Jesus and really dealing with who He is and what He means to you. If you haven’t done this, take a few minutes to truly consider Steps to Peace With God and the Good News of Jesus Christ, which is for all of us - especially you!

These sites all offer clear explanations of how you can know a Personal Christmas

• Would You Like To Know God Personally?
• The Four Spiritual Laws
• Jesus Cares About You!
• Are You A Good Person? (Flash presentation)
• You Are Someone Special (Flash presentation)
• Knowing God Personally (Flash presentation)

Many who embrace technology, including some users of the Internet, have difficulty reconciling their faith in human potential and scientific achievement with the claims of Christ and the Bible. If you’re one of them, take a moment to consider Jesus and the Intellectual or I Am A Skeptic.

There’s a company that makes T-shirts with spiritual themes. One of them shows an airplane being flown by a frantic pilot. The shirt says “If God is your co-pilot, switch seats.”

That’s a statement that’s simple, but sort of sums up our struggle. We often talk about how faith is hard. But I believe a certain amount of faith is really not difficult at all. The Gallup Organization of Princeton conduct surveys that consistently report that about 94 percent of Americans believe in God. It’s not hard to acknowledge God. And I don’t think it’s hard for me to make God my co-pilot.

It’s easy. Like this:

“God, you keep an eye on the horizon and the dials and gauges while I fly the plane. But you be ready in case a storm comes up or we lose an engine or the wing falls off, because then I’m gonna need you to save the day. Of course, when we have blue skies, I’ll just take over again.”

That’s not hard. What’s hard is to relinquish the wheel. At the Annunciation, Mary gives us the blueprint for a different kind of faith - the hard kind.
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Every year around this time, I have a familiar experience. I’m out shopping, and I’ll go through the checkout line, and pay for my stuff. When the cashier hands me back the change, they’ll say “Happy holidays,” or perhaps even “Merry Christmas.”

I realize that this comment is not always motivated by the cashier’s genuine interest in whether or not I enjoy my holiday. I’m aware that they may be saying this because they’ve been told to. I can envision the memo from K mart corporate headquarters directing cashiers when to switch from “Have a nice day” to “Happy Holidays,” on the assumption that this will somehow help cement a lasting bond between the store and the customer that won’t evaporate when a Wal-Mart opens across the street.

I’m aware of all that, and suspicious of the whole business. But at least once every year, I have a cashier who looks me in the eye and says “Merry Christmas,” and really means it. And it changes my whole day.

There really is something genuine to this whole idea of Christmas cheer. As Dec. 25th draws near, people warm up just a bit. If you’re out and around on Christmas Eve, you’ll notice that people are friendlier than on any other day of the year.

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Editor’s note: This meditation was written in 1994. We’ve retained the references to current events of the period.

“You must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say ‘Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation’ … But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 PETER 3: 3-4, 8-9

We live in astounding times. Think of the events of recent years: Rabin and Arafat shaking hands on the White House lawn; Red Army tanks shelling the Moscow Parliament because the Communists won’t come out; floods covering much of the Midwest with water for weeks; a false Christ being featured on the covers of all the major newsmagazines and in a TV movie. The combination of momentous political change and unusual natural phenomena in recent years has many folks wondering just what the heck is going on. The evangelist Billy Graham recently wrote that he has never in 50 years of ministry had so many people ask him if the end of the world is at hand. The timing of the Second Coming has always titillated us, perhaps because it is concealed from us. For as Jesus said, “No one knows that day or hour, not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” That instruction often gets forgotten when believers see events that correspond with the signs Christ said would foreshadow His return. There is growing speculation that the Second Coming is imminent, a trend that will only intensify as the turn of the millenium approaches. Christians must take care to not be deceived - either by those who insist He’s coming tomorrow, or those who claim He won’t return in our lifetime. (more…)

“And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in Heaven, and the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” MATTHEW 24:30-31

Advent is a season with a two-fold focus. It is a time in which Christians recall and celebrate Jesus Christ’s entrance into our world to redeem mankind and triumph over death. It is also a period in which believers look forward to the “Second Advent” - the day when He will come back.

For nearly 2,000 years, Christians have lived in the hope of Our Lord’s imminent return. Jesus’ description of the event spans two chapters in the Gospel of Matthew (24-25) and is usually read as part of the lectionary as Christmas nears. The Second Coming was also an emphasis in the epistles of Paul, Peter and John. Bible scholars cite more than 300 references to it in the New Testament.

In his teachings about the Second Coming, it’s important to understand that Jesus emphasized spiritual preparation rather than irresponsible speculation.
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After Gabriel appears to Zechariah, Luke presents the account of his appearance to Mary. And if the angel’s news for Zechariah seemed astounding, it was but a trifle compared to the bombshell Gabriel drops on Mary.

“You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Whatever upheaval Zechariah had to grapple with was minor league compared to Mary’s dilemma. Let’s consider her situation when confronted with the news that she would bear God’s Son through the virgin birth. What might this mean to her?

Mary was probably about 16, perhaps even younger. She becomes pregnant. Given the societal mores of the time, she could have fully expected that she would be disgraced, that her fiancee Joseph (who knew he wasn’t the father) would abandon her, and that she would probably never marry. It’s also important to understand that Jewish society in the first century took a real hard line on “blasphemy,” as later accounts of Jesus’ ministry and death make clear. A young, single woman claiming that God had made her pregnant would have encountered trouble.

We can try to imagine ourselves in Mary’s shoes, but I don’t expect we can ever really grasp the enormity of her situation. Mary must have known there could be problems. But rather than focusing on the size of her problems, she chose to trust in the size of her God.

“I am the Lord’s servant,” she replies. “May it be to me as you have said.”
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What would happen if one morning, during the middle of your daily routine, an angel appeared and told you that God had a plan that would completely change your life? How would you respond?

Luke’s account of the Christmas story includes two such incidents, and there are important truths and lessons to be found in these events.

In the first instance, the angel Gabriel appears to the priest Zechariah in the temple as he conducts his duties. Zechariah “was startled and gripped with fear.” Well, I suppose you and I would be, too.

“Do not be afraid, Zechariah,” Gabriel tells him. “Your prayer has been heard. Your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John … he will be great in the sight of the Lord. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous - to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Zechariah has been confronted with the heavenly glory of God’s messenger, a clearly supernatural interruption of his day. Yet his response to the angel’s astounding news is to try and fit it into his existing assumptions about his life and his future.

“How can I be sure of this?” responds Zechariah. “I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” Zechariah can’t believe that he and Elizabeth could have a child, much less grasp the magnitude of John The Baptist’s mission.
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The Film: The Nativity Story

• Official Site: The Nativity Story: Official site from the moviemakers. It’s in Flash, with lots of multimedia. Attractive and informative, but might be trouble on dialup.
• Bible Films Blog: A page dedicated to the extensive coverage of The Nativity Story by the Bible Films Blog. The site, created and maintained by Matt Page, is “the largest source of information about Bible Films on the Internet. Recommended.
• News of the Nativity Story: Blog dedicated to the latest news, reviews and information about the movie.
• The Nativity Story Talked Up In Hollywood, Christian Circles: An overview from The Christian Post, with positive comments from Anne Graham Lotz, who has seen the film.
• The Nativity Story: The Making of the Movie: Thorough article about the making of the movie from The St. Anthony Messenger, which visited the set during the making of the movie. Recommended.
• Vatican Officials Give Thumbs Up to Nativity Story: The Catholic News Service account of the world premiere at the Vatican.
• The Nativity Story: A Biblical Epic for the Ages: Rave review from the Hollywood Reporter, via Reuters
• Media In A Stink Over The Nativity Story: Many facts about Keisha Castle-Hughes’ pregnancy and media appearances (especially the Vatican premiere) have been misstated in media accounts, according to William Donohue of the Catholic League, who says “Christians do not turn their backs on unwed mothers.”