Christmas is a season that many spend the whole year yearning for and waiting for. Traditions are built around the celebration of Christmas that fill hearts with anticipation and happiness.
For many, an important part of the holidays is the storytelling.
People sit with their families and watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or It’s a Wonderful Life while eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate. They reread the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol while sitting near the twinkling of Christmas lights.
Nearly everyone has a favorite Christmas story and these stories often share a common theme, that of transformation.
Changed Lives in Holiday Stories
From Ebenezer Scrooge’s conversion from "covetous old sinner" to the epitome of charity and goodwill to Rudolph’s elevation from loser to winner. Christmas stories promise readers and viewers that there is a goodness in mankind that permits change if only we believe enough. In Miracle on 34th Street, Fred tells Doris that “Faith is believing in things...when common sense tells you not to.”
As the story progresses, Doris begins to believe. At the end, when Doris’ daughter Suzie is disappointed by not getting what she wants for Christmas. Doris finds herself repeating everything that Fred told her about believing.
On the way home from the Christmas party, they follow Kringle’s suggested route back to their apartment and find that their belief is rewarded and they get what they most want: love, family, and home.
Christmas Message of Believing
Today one of the most popular messages of Christmas is captured in a single word: believe. From Christmas cards to lapel pins the single word is printed as a message of hope. Sometimes it is accompanied by the image of a snowman, at other times a star might signify belief, and on rare occasions a silhouette of the nativity scene might be accompanied by the word "believe." However, people are seldom told what they must believe.
Like faith healing, people are encouraged to believe and if they believe hard enough, they will get what they want: a second chance at life, the opportunity to pull Santa’s sleigh, or an instant family. What people don’t realize is that undirected belief is like faith healing. It only cures the symptom, not the disease. Like lame men who walk, those who believe and get what their hearts desire still end up in the same place as every other mortal on planet earth, in the grave.
Something to Believe In
The largest religious group in the world is that of Christianity. Christianity shares the distinction of being an Abrahamic religion along with Islam (the second largest group) and Judaism (the sixth largest group). Christians and Jews believe in the prophecies in the Old Testament about a promised a Savior. The Jews are still waiting for Him.
Christians, however, believe that not only did the Savior come but that He came not only for the Jewish race but also for whoever believes in Him. John 3:16 says that “For 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.”
Why did God do this? Because he knows we need to be transformed. The desire for transformation that is integral to so many stories about Christmas exists because people want to change. Even if they do not understand why they ought to change or why they want to change, it is the desire of their heart.
Changing By One’s Self
However, change is hard. If you have dieted and failed, you know that sometimes changing yourself by yourself is nearly impossible, which is why the world is full of support groups for people who need help changing. From Weight Watchers to Alcoholics Anonymous, people seek others to help them change.
Permanent Change
The change offered by Christ’s birth is a reprieve. It is not until Christ’s death that human’s received permanent healing. Christ heals not only the symptoms but also the disease. People who believe in Jesus share in his return from death.
Christmas is a season of hope, if you believe that the baby Jesus is a seed planted by God in the womb of the world’s darkness and sin. When God’s child dies and is returned to life, people are given the gift of rebirth; the gift of transformation, if they believe.
