A Meaning of Christmas - BRoME

Christmas can have many meanings for many people.  They can all be different.  Christmas of course is about the coming of God to live with man to offer him hope, new life and salvation.  It is about God putting on flesh and living amongst us.  He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, Philippians 2:7. The way we celebrate Christmas tells a lot of the what sort of meanings we attribute to Christmas.  Going to a religious celebration like a Mass can indicate a religious significance you place in celebrating it.  God gave His son as gift to humanity; a most perfect gift - the gift of life to be given away as a supreme sacrifice.  The gifts that we give each other during Christmas echoes faintly the supreme gift-giving of God himself.  The gifts we give one another are usually wrapped .  This is  designed to give an element of surprise and at the same time to make the gift appear more attractive.  God came as a human being wrapped in human flesh, the Emmanuel, God-with-us.  He came as a surprise.  The religious leaders did not recognise him and rejected him and finally led him to death. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. John 1:11.  They did not find him attractive at all.  Despite the hundreds of years of prophecy about his coming, when he finally came, only a scant number of people caught a glimpse of who he was.  He came to be part of his family, to be up close to the people he created. Hor this reason, a meaning I adopt for Christmas is being close to the family.  It is a time to see each other.  It doesn't really matter what gifts are given.  Everybody has their own budget to work around.  The gift is an excuse to see one another in a different light, to forgive for whatever faults, and to accept one another as having placed in this earth to be gifts to one another, with no wrappers, with no surprises, but just as we are.  The best gift anybody can give is just being there, being present, holding some attention, indicating a person's worth and value, remembered and not forgotten.  'Forget'  is such a lonely verb- so sad and depressing.  It is not misdemeanour to forget intentionally - it is a crime.  It is an action of denial which is like withholding or grabbing back an intended gift.  The gift represents your giving of yourself.  So the action of denial is in a large way a denial of your own self.  With that denial you lose a large chunk of yourself which can result in tragic consequences for your mind, body and spirit.  So try to remember this time in December...