Local Pastors Explain The Meaning Of ChristmasOn Wednesday, the world’s 2.18 billion Christians will celebrate Christmas.
Christmas is the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus, said the Rev. Jonathan Norton, of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Warsaw.
The meaning of Christmas is that God comes to Earth in human form, said the Rev. Time Diemer, of Grace Lutheran Church, Syracuse.
“Christmas is something God achieved for us,” he said. “God is the one that chose to come down in the flesh and live among us.”
Christmas is about the reason Jesus chose to die for people’s sins, said the Rev. Pastor Mark Fishburn, of First Baptist Church, Pierceton.
The meaning of Christmas is about “God bringing peace and joy and God getting down in our mess and walking with us in our mess,” as well as giving people strength, said the Rev. Brian Smith, of First United Methodist Church, Warsaw.
Diemer said he gets the meaning of Christmas from John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Smith said the meaning of Christmas comes from the prophesies of Jesus’s coming from the Old Testament and the results of it happening in the New Testament.
The pastors suggested there are ways to live up to the meaning of Christmas or for people to live its meaning year-round.
“It’s not a day-long or a season-long thing,” said Fishburn, as the meaning of the holiday should be celebrated all year.
“I think we see glimpses of it (year-round),” Smith said. He gave examples of the glimpses as when people hear about stories of people doing something or recovering from something like an addiction and finding a place of healing. When hearing that, people know they are not alone.
“I think the more we open our heart to that, the more it changes,” Fishburn said.
He said living up to the meaning behind the Christmas season will have to start in people’s personal lives and it will show through people’s lives.
Fishburn suggested people can do this by sharing in the love and joy of the holiday and by doing things such as reaching out to those in need and less fortunate as Jesus cared for those in physical need of help.
Diemer said people can’t live up to the sacrifice Jesus made for our sins. However, people can reflect that good news in their everyday life and let people know God is with them.
“We want peace, we want reconciliation,” said Norton, also saying we need each other to fulfill the need of peace.
Norton, who’s been in Warsaw for 1-1/2 years, says the community still has crime and “we still see people hurting each other,” but he’s sees Warsaw as a good place and the people seem very generous.
The first thing Norton suggested to celebrate the meaning of Christmas year-round was to continue to meditate on the birth of Jesus for the rest of year, along with the rest of the story of Jesus in regards to what he did while he was on Earth. He also suggested people to be part of a faith-filled community and to be around people with faith.
“It has to be a life-changing thing,” Norton said.
Norton said he had a professor in seminary that said if you fall in love with Jesus, it will change everything; and if you fall out of love with Jesus, it will change everything.
