Christmas, a time for sausage rolls?

Today we will be starting a two-week Christmas series, called “Christmas: a time for sausage rolls?”. We will be looking at what makes Christmas special, and what is truly behind it.

This week we are going to be starting at the very beginning and looking at why God needed to send his only son to Earth as a human baby.

Christmas is a busy time of year for lots of people for a variety of different reasons. There are parties to go to, presents to buy, things to eat and songs to sing. However, what do we really think is important to make Christmas well Christmas?

As a group I want you to order these things in importance, from Christmas essential to not important at all.

For many Christmas is more about gifts, parties and socialising that it is about Christ. If you are to watch your TVs or browse online it is easy to think that Christmas is all centred around a fat bloke in a red suit than it is about the saviour of the universe coming to Earth as a humble baby, or companies turning this momentous event into a cheap advert for their products.

Because of this it is more important than ever that we know both the truth about Christmas, but also why God did it in the first place.

So, we have established what we think is important for Christmas, but where do we think that the Christmas story begins, who has any suggestions?

Many of these ideas are good, but you could argue that the Christmas story actually began way before this. You may remember from a few weeks ago, during our Care of Creation series we read in Colossians 1 : 15 - 17.

Here we see that Jesus has been a central part of God’s plan for creation since the very beginning of time, and that all things in the world have been created through him to be in worship of him, and are intended to be held together by him.

However, not everyone has wanted to follow this plan, where God and his son Jesus are the ones who are in control and are the ones who are worshipped. Can you think of any examples where individuals have chosen to go against God’s plan?

We see throughout the Bible that each time humanity turns away from God, he provides a way for his people to recover from their mistakes and return into a relationship with him.

However, there is a cost to each of these mistakes and a sacrifice has to be made in order to be made in order for us to be acceptable again to our God who is perfect.

Let’s take Adam and Eve as our first example, and the actions that God took after they chose to ignore God and eat the forbidden fruit, which resulting in them feeling shame of their nakedness for the first time, which we read in Genesis 3 : 21 - 24.

Here we see that God is provides them with a gift to help them in the place they find themselves in. He provides them with clothes, to cover the nakedness and shame that they brought upon themselves though ignoring him. However, in order for them to benefit from these clothes made out of skins, first there had to be a death, the first of its kind in all of creation. This death is symbolic of the sacrifice needed to restore our relationship with God.

We see this example of sacrifice in several of the books in the Old Testament. Such as the parts of Exodus, and the books of Leviticus and Numbers. Here we see God giving us the ability to restore our relationship with him, by allowing the life of an animal to take the punishment we deserved, which according to God’s standards is death.

Christmas is primarily about God’s decision to end this cycle of bad decision (by us) and death once and for all.

The way he chooses to do this is by going to Earth himself to become an ultimate sacrifice to end all sacrifices. God didn’t do this in a blaze of thunder and fire, he instead chose to come as a innocent, helpless baby to come to the rescue as we will read in Luke 2 : 1 - 21.

Jesus being born in a stable was part of God’s plan to restore humanity to having a relationship with God, by bringing light into an otherwise dark world. God did this because as we read in John 3 : 13 God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God sent his son to Earth not only to end the cycle of sin and sacrifice but he also came to show the love of God and bring light and hope to a dark and hopeless world.

To help us remember this we are going to make our own paper candles.