The Meaning of Christmas
It’s Christmas time and we get so busy with the cooking, the decorating and shopping that we forget why we’re doing all of this in the first place. Sometimes, the people we love the most are lost in the hustle and packed schedules.
Paul’s words in I Corinthians 13 are the most read passages in the Bible. We know the words. However, do we know the real meaning and how they apply to our everyday life? Here is another version:
- If I decorate my house perfectly with lovely plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny glass balls, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another decorator.
- If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals, and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another cook.
- If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties, and sing in the choir’s cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.
- Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
- Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband or wife.
- Love is kind, though hurried and tired.
- Love doesn’t envy another home that has coordinated china and table linens.
- Love doesn’t give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can’t.
- Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
- Love never fails. Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust. But giving the gift of love will endure.
I think this text tells us more about Christ and Christmas than anything I have ever read.
I Corinthians 13: 13 – And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
We are so busy at Christmas, we often miss the real meaning. We, at the Virginia United Methodist Foundation and Development Company, want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.