The Wonder of Christmas
A Story for Everyone
What do you tell your children about the “right jolly old elf?” Are you afraid to destroy their childhood with the truth? I don’t think you should worry, because the truth is even more fun than the myth. In fact the story of Christmas is a very exciting adventure. Tell your children, and everyone who will listen about the love story of how Joseph married Mary.
A Very Merry Christmas To You
The Mass of Christ or Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Christ. It begins with a young woman and an encounter with one of God's most powerful Angels! You can’t get any more exciting than being chosen to be blessed to be the mother of Jesus and have the Angel Gabriel visit you and deliver the essence of the Son of God inside of you.
Mary was chosen by God to be the one to be Jesus mother. An angel named Gabriel visited her and told her all about God’s plan to give the world a Savior and she agreed to be the one to have the baby. But oh how people talked about her…. And how could she tell Joseph her fiancé? What would he do?
Mary told Joseph about the angel, and that she was with child, that's how they said, "I'm pregnant," back then. Pretty soon everyone in their small town knew it. Mary was pregnant, and she wasn't married.
Even though everyone thought Joseph shouldn’t marry her, and he was very confused about what to do... but then... Can you believe it? He was visited by an angel too! So he knew his love for Mary was true and her love for him was true love. So Joseph took care of Mary, and was not afraid to marry her.
They had a lot of people say really mean things about them, but they knew that God had a special plan for them and the unborn child. Well, if things weren’t hard enough with half the village whispering about them, the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus decided to have a census at the worst time of year for a young pregnant woman to have to travel. Caesar was the Emperor so they had to go!
In those days there were no cars or vans, there were only donkeys and carts. Well, they had to go to Bethlehem. That means they had to travel from their small town called Nazareth all the way to Bethlehem. As if on top of everything else this wasn’t hard enough, when they got there, there were so many other people who had to go and register in the census, that there was no place to get a room.
And to top even that off, Mary was about to have the baby! Oh, no! What is going to happen now?
Joseph was beside himself, but then he found a place. It was not the best of places, they stayed in a room where the animals were kept. And that is where the baby was born.
And they called his name, Jesus.
Now some people will tell you that there wasn’t any celebration for Jesus birth, and birthdays are not important: but hold on, guess what happened?
Out in the field, where the Shepherds kept the flock that would be used for the Passover sacrifices, there were shepherds tending the sheep and suddenly, right before their eyes, there was a whole sky full of angels praising God and singing.
Can you imagine a whole sky full of angels? Messenger angels, guardian angels and warrior angels. Well, those shepherd were amazed, who wouldn't be? But these shepherds were very familiar with what it meant to be a sacrificial lamb, and soon as the angels left they decided to go see this special child.
You know what this means? No matter how lowly you are born, you are special to God. God loves the "nobodies," and He chose the "nobodies" to share in His celebration!
But there is more to the story. After the census, when everyone was counted, then Mary and Joseph took baby Jesus and moved into a nice little home. And one day a big caravan of Magi came because they had seen a star that led them to the place where Jesus was living. They also wanted to come and worship Jesus as King of the World. These Magi knew exactly what the old testament Bible prophecies said about the coming King.
All of this attention from the very important Magi made King Herod very jealous and he tried to get the Magi to tell him where the little boy was because he wanted to kill him, but he didn’t tell the Magi that he wanted to kill the baby. He said he wanted to worship the newborn King.
Harod asked the Magi lots of questions. He wanted to know when they first saw the star that led them to Bethlehem. He was jealous and wanted to know as much as he could, but he pretended it was so that he could worship the True King. When he was done talking to the Maji, they went to find Jesus.
They brought with them special gifts, because they knew he was the True King. Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh were the special gifts. After they had given their gifts to Jesus, they were warned in a dream not to tell Herod where the baby boy was, so they went back to the East by another route.
This made Herod really, really mad, and he sent his armies out to kill all of the babies who were two years old and younger. That is a very evil and wicked man. But he could not find Jesus.
Before Herod could find them, an angel of God appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt and stay there.
And that is just what Joseph did. He took Mary and Jesus and went to Egypt. After Herod died, they came back and they lived in Nazareth. The story of Jesus is full of many more adventures and he did indeed become the savior to the world. And that is another story. That is an Easter story.
Many, many years later there was a man who wanted to honor God by helping the poor. His name was Nicholas of Bari. He was such a good and kind man they called him Saint Nicholas.
St. Nicholas, became a saint of the Eastern and Western Church. We associate Nicholas with the festival of Christmas because of his care for the poor. In many countries children receive gifts in his name on December 6th and it is called St. Nicholas Day. Here in America we celebrate gift giving on December 25th. And we also celebrate Jesus birthday that same day. We don't know when Jesus real birthday is, but we celebrate it by giving gifts and meeting in Church so the family of God can celebrate together.
There isn’t a historical record of Nicholas life, just the stories and traditions handed down. There are many stories, some are funny, some are just about his kindness.
It was his reputation for secret giving that led people to begin giving secret gifts using his name. He is reputed to have given dowries of gold to three very poor girls so they could have happy weddings. It is his reputation for giving in secret that we copy as we celebrate Christmas.
His legend remained in Holland as Sinterklaas. Dutch colonists took this tradition with them to New Amsterdam (which we know as New York) in the American Colonies.
Sinterklaas became Santa Claus to the English speaking people and his legend as a kindly old man was united with old Nordic folktales of a magician who punished naughty children with lumps of coal and rewarded good children with presents. In the United Kingdom he is called Father Christmas.
But we all know him as Santa Claus. From that we have many stories of Christmas to enjoy as an example of giving with love. But the best is that we can believe the true story of Jesus all our lives and enjoy this very special time of year always, not just when we are children.
Christmas, celebrating the birth of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ is for everyone! Merry Christmas!
Here Comes Santa Claus!