Why Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?

Should Christians celebrate Christmas? YES!!!!

I will be honest with you. I have not been very “Christmasy” this year, and I do not know why, but even my beloved Christmas songs seem to have lost some luster this year that is until I read the passage that I am going to share with you, and when I read that passage, I asked God to forgive me for being so melancholy about Christmas this year.

Hebrews 2:16–18 “For it is clear that he does not reach out to help angels, but to help Abraham’s offspring. Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.

For since he himself has suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.”

God chose to come to earth not as an angel, not as God, but as man.

He took on the seed of Abraham. Jesus needed to be like His brothers and sisters that He came to earth to save, and the Bible tells us why, and those reasons are why every Christian should celebrate Christmas.

I. We should celebrate Christmas because Jesus is our High Priest.

Hebrews 2:17 “Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.”

To understand Jesus as High Priest, you must understand the significance of the High Priest in the Old Testament.

Priest in the Old Testament carries two primary meanings.

First, it means one who mediates in religious services.

Second, it means one who is holy or set apart to perform those religious services.

The first place in the Bible that we see the term used is in Genesis 14, and the title is attached, Mrs. Anita, to a mysterious character.

Genesis 14:18–20 “Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine; he was a priest to God Most High. He blessed him and said: Abram is blessed by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High who has handed over your enemies to you. And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”

Melchizedek means King of Righteousness, and he blessed Abraham and the Most High God.

Abraham acknowledged Melchizedek by giving him a title of the spoils of war he had taken when he freed Lot. By giving the tithe, Abraham was acknowledging Melchizedek’s position as High Priest.

Years later, Abraham’s great grandson, Levi, was set apart by God to be the father of the priestly tribe, and when the Law was given on Mt. Sinai, the Levites were identified as the servants of the Tabernacle, with the family of Aaron becoming the priests.

Among the priests, one was selected as the High Priest, and he entered into the Most Holy Place once a year on the Day of Atonement to place the blood of the sacrifice on the Ark of the Covenant.

Hebrews 9:7 “But the high priest alone enters the second room, and he does that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.”

By these daily and yearly sacrifices, the sins of the people were temporarily covered until the Messiah came to take away their sins.

When Jesus is called our High Priest, it is in reference to Melchizedek and Levi.

Like Melchizedek, He is ordained a priest apart from the Law given on Mount Sinai.

Like the Levitical priests, Jesus offered a sacrifice to satisfy the demands of the Law of God and that sacrifice was Himself for our sins.

This was a one-time sacrifice resulting in eternal redemption for all those who come to God through Him.

When I started this series of Christmas messages, I made this abundantly clear. A person cannot know God apart from Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus, our High Priest, that a relationship with God is made possible. You cannot know God any other way. It is Jesus Christ who is the Way to God. It is Jesus Christ who reveals the truth about God, and it is Jesus Christ who secures our eternal life because as our High Priest, He made a one-time sacrifice for our sins.

Jesus, though God from eternity, became a man in order to die, so He could serve as our High Priest.******

Hebrews 2:9 “But we do see Jesus—made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God’s grace he might taste death for everyone—crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death.”

As a Man, God subjected Himself to all the weaknesses and temptations that you and I face. Why?

So He could relate to us in our struggles.

Because God came as man, you and I can boldly go unto the throne of grace because our High Priest is there interceding on our behalf.

It is our High Priest who saves us to the end.

Romans 8:38–39 “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing can separate me from the love of God because of Jesus Christ. He is my High Priest, and though the whole world come against me, Jesus is still there for me keeping me in God’s love, and ladies and gentleman, that is a great reason to celebrate Christmas.

II. We should celebrate Christmas because Jesus reconciled us to God.

Hebrews 2:17 “Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.”

Jesus made atonement for our sins. Jesus Christ reconciled us to God. Do you realize what the means?

Reconcile is an accounting term. When you balance your checkbook, what do you do? You reconcile your records with the bank’s records, and hopefully, those records match. You hope everything balances.

You and I were born with an incredible deficit that we could never balance.

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;”

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

God is Holy. Man is sinful, and man, on his own, could never convert sinfulness into holiness, so our account would never be balanced.

We are all sinners, and God could never fellowship with sinners. As sinners, we would be forever at enmity with God unless someone reconciles us to God.

Because we are sinners in the nature of Adam, we needed a blood sacrifice to wipe away our sins.

Hebrews 9:22 “According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

According to the Law and Romans 6:23, I deserve death because that is what I earned by sinning. If I died for my own sins, I would not reconcile myself to God. I would be getting what I deserve, but God desired a relationship with man, a relationship that would require the blood of someone who could balance our books with God, and that One is Jesus.

Only Jesus could balance the books. It was Jesus who stepped out of glory to be born in that manger. He had to do so. He had to be man to reconcile man. He submitted Himself to the reconciliation that man needed and God required.

John 10:18 “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.””

As God, Jesus could not have reconciled mankind because as God, Jesus could never die, so God took the form of a man to reconcile man to Himself. The pure, undefiled by sin, blood of Jesus Christ gives me standing before God.

1 Peter 1:18–23 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”

Dear friend, I am reconciled to God by Christ, the One who shed is precious blood to make it happen. By the way, notice what Peter says.

“Who by Him do believe in God.” Do you know what that means? It means that the only way to know God is by believing in Jesus Christ. There is no other way. One of the great phrases ever uttered came from the Cruel Cross of Calvary.

John 19:30 “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”

When Jesus said it was finished, tetelestai, the reconciliation was complete. The price was paid. Mankind could be balanced with God because Jesus settled the difference. He finished it. He completed it. He settled it.

Colossians 2:13–15 “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”

You and I were dead to our sins, but Jesus wiped all those sins away, and because He is not in the grave, those sins can never separate me from a relationship with God because through Christ, I am reconciled, and dear friend, that is an incredible reason for you and I to celebrate Christmas.

III. We should celebrate Christmas because Jesus knows what we are experiencing.

Hebrews 2:18 “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.”

Hebrews 4:15 “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Literally, Jesus Christ faced everything that you and I face, but He experienced those situations without sinning.

Jesus faced every temptation known to man.

The devil threw the kitchen sink at Him, but Jesus did not sin, and because He did not sin, do you know what He tells you when you are tempted to sin?

1 Corinthians 10:13 “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

When you are tempted to sin, guess who makes it possible for you to overcome that temptation? JESUS!

Do you know why? Because He experienced that same temptation when He was in the flesh that you face, but He overcame those temptations, and He will make a way for you to overcome them too if you will only listen to and heed what He says.

Jesus experienced sadness.

Luke 19:41 “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,”

Jesus wept uncontrollably over Jerusalem because the city had missed the time of Jesus’s visitation is what the passage says in verse 44. In other words, Jesus had come to save them, but they missed Him, and dear friend, when you are sad, guess who is there to comfort you? JESUS!!!!

Jesus experienced hunger.

Matthew 4:1–2 “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.”

You name it, and Jesus faced it, and He endured those things for you. He endured those things, so He could be sympathetic to our needs. Jesus knows what you need when you are down. Jesus knows what you need when you are sad. Jesus knows what you need when you are thirsty and hungry. Jesus knows what you feel when you are angry. Jesus knows how you feel when you feel that you are all alone because He was alone.

Matthew 27:45–46 “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

God left the throne of glory to be born in the manger so that He could be there for you no matter what you are experiencing, including illnesses. I know that Jesus was not sick, but He was there for Peter when His mother-in-law was sick. He was there for many others that were sick. He was there for Mary and Martha when Lazarus died.

Dear friend, Jesus will give you comfort and ease in every situation because He, as Hebrews 4:15 says, faced everything that you face, and dear friend, that is another reason why we should celebrate Christmas.

Christmas should be celebrated. Everything that you and I are as Christians is owed to that miraculous birth, that sinless life, that sacrificial death, that glorious resurrection, and that triumphant return. May we never forget the reason for the season, the reason to celebrate.