Can the Love of Christmas Last All Year? — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

In the Peanuts comic strip – It’s Christmas – Lucy comes into the room where Charlie Brown is standing. Well, she says, Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown. It’s, it’s the season of peace on earth, goodwill toward men. Therefore, I suggest, listen, we forget all our differences and we love one another. Well, Charlie’s face lights up. That’s wonderful, Lucy. I’m so glad you said that, but tell me do we have to love each other all year long? And Lucy says, what are you, a fanatic or something?

I found that a very interesting reply. Can we keep the spirit of love and peace for the other days of the year apart from this Christmas, it’s not such a, an odd comment after all. And one aspect of Christmas, I think, is this important word forgiveness.

Isn’t it a good idea to offer forgiveness now, today, especially during a season supposedly of love and goodwill? Well, let me tell you a true story about a lady who is over 80 years of age. Now, 11 years ago, her husband died. They’d been married for 49 years, but there’d been an issue in their marriage which had caused a problem because 48 years ago he had actually told her what he called a little white lie.

Now she loved him, but she couldn’t let it go. She just couldn’t get out of her head that he’d lied to her, and she held on to that for 48 years. And 2 days before he died, he asked his wife to forgive him, but she couldn’t do it. And then he died without any resolution to this particular issue. And so for 11 years she’s been haunted by the burden of not offering him forgiveness.

And of course as she spoke to a counselor about it, she said, well, one day I’m going to die, and here am I, he’s dead, he’s gone, and I had never resolved that particular issue.

Now that sad story made me realize that while people celebrate Christmas, or Advent as we call it, we can look back on our own life with remorse, the things that we didn’t do that we should have done, and it’s a self-inflicted wound, and it’s often the worst kind, you know, I wish I’d done that differently. We let things fester or we might nurse our grudges, we end up being the loser, and here was this lady who was over 80, very unhappy, miserable actually, she was very unhappy.

And if I was speaking to her today, I would remind her of the word from the Bible, and it is from Exodus chapter 34 that the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

And there again in Psalm 130:3-4, these remarkable words:

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If you kept a record of our sins, no one could last long but you forgive us.

It’s the psalmist talking to God. So let’s remember that the God of Christmas is a God who actually forgives, and he looks for chances to forgive you and me because you know that the forgiveness is in God’s nature. Jeremiah said, God forgets our sins and remembers them no more.

Psalm 103:12 – God removes our sins as far as the east is from the west. And so the coming of Jesus as a baby in Bethlehem tells us that God did something about forgiveness. Here was Jesus – who came into the world who’d meet our deepest needs, the Counselor, who is the mighty God, the source of everlasting peace, as Isaiah had said, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, and those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them light has shined.

Yes, Jesus has come to relieve guilt and give you joy. He came as our Savior. An old Christmas carol actually says, Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free, free from our fears and sins. Let us find our rest in Thee. So Jesus came because we’d made such a mess of this world. He came as a baby named Jesus, born to save us from our sins. He grew up and we killed Him. He was crucified. But of course Jesus came back from the dead. But of course no one but God could have done that.

It was CS Lewis who said the Son of God became a man to enable men to become the Sons of God, and that’s the good news of Christmas. I trust that you don’t have that sense of regret like our friend the lady did.

Let’s Pray

Lord, thank you for this time, for Christmas. May there be a real sense of release and forgiveness in our own heart. Amen.

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