What a nice 3-days-before Christmas posting.
I love Christmas. I like to reflect upon many memories of Christmas past and present. I get caught up in the glitter, the lights, the gifting, the memories made and held, the baking, the eating, the family time, parties with friends....
And I nearly didn't make it to the festivities this year. Unless you are very close to me, you cannot know the profundity of my experience in Israel. By the grace of God and His prayer warriors, I am alive this Christmas. God came down to me and healed me that I might celebrate His advent with my family this year. I am hyper-aware that many who began the year cannot say the same. Many people have passed on since last Christmas. The impact of God's divine healing in my life and His physical touch cannot be understated. I believe I will never be the same.
I am alive this Christmas. But I see dead people.
I don't have crazy nightmares or visions, nor do I hang around zombies or ghosts. I saw dead people while I was Christmas caroling, when I attended the Holidazzle parade, as I strolled the stores for the next good deal. Dead people drive by me on the roads, dead people ring up my items.
Christmas for dead people can be a time they can enjoy temporarily as the seeming goodwill of men is in full-swing. Some of them can fake their happiness through another disastrous family get-together. Others may take in the season and not be fooled by the joy and peace heralded that never comes. That is because dead people have at least one thing in common this Christmas: they do not hover around a manger to worship God With Us. They do not run to the stall with exceeding joy to worship the King. They do not span thousands of miles to bring gifts to Jesus.
These cannot have any joy, peace or even love this Christmas. Because dead is dead.
The physical reality of that statement is tragic, but the spiritual significance is catastrophic. Thankfully the true Joy and Peace and Love gifted to us on Christmas is also Hope. Hope for the world full of spiritually dead people.
I was not saved from death on April 10, 2011. God came down to me in the form of a human baby, chose to save me--predestined to save me-- even before that first Christmas. He saved me through the Christ child.
But having that experience, I feel it is time for me to get really real. Families and friends who have lost people this year or Christmas's past are not the only ones with the burden of death. There are millions of dead people this Christmas that need to be made alive in Christ. They are spiritually dead and if they physically die in this state, they will spend an eternity of "Christmas's" separated from God and in torment and suffering.
Christ came to testify to the Truth. And He indeed is "the Way, the Truth and the Life."He came to show us the Father and to give us a way to be reconciled to the Father through Himself. He came to raise the dead-- yes, some physically-- but most importantly, the spiritual dead. So, I am purposing to get real this Christmas and share "the reason for the season" with those I know are dead.
Christmas for most is not a season of joy and peace, though most people fake it well. It cannot be a time of rejoicing without Christ. Dead is dead. But alive in Christ is worth rejoicing and praising and dancing and singing about Jesus and the work and result of His first advent and anticipating His second advent.
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. I Corinthians 15:21-22
