For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9
“The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity – hope for pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.
We talk glibly of the “Christmas spirit,” rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.
It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians – I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians – go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable [cf. Luke 10:25-37], seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet those needs) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side.
That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians – alas, they are many – whose ambition in life seems to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the submiddle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.
The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob, for the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor – spending and being spent – to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care, and concern, to do good to others – and not just their own friends – in whatever way there seems need.
There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things he will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit.”
J.I. Packer in Knowing God (Downers Grove: IVP, 1973) 63-64.
Father in heaven, forgive us for becoming Christian snobs. Help us by your Holy Spirit to spend ourselves and be spent to enrich the lives of others for your sake. As we minister in this posture, thank you that we don’t end up empty, but rather, we shine with the Christmas spirit as exhibitors of your grace, empowered by your strength and abundant provision and not our own. As we cultivate the Christmas spirit, make us conduits of your love for the world today and every day of the year. In your mercy, hear our prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Happy Christmas everyone!