The Christ of Christmas

Christmas is wet in Singapore. It doesn’t snow; it rains. Growing up in a non-Christian family, we didn’t celebrate Christmas. But when I was young, my siblings and I, together with a few neighborhood kids, decided to have a Christmas gift exchange. I don’t know where we got the idea—maybe from all the TV shows we’d been watching.…

Immanuel

I was talking with a friend who is a newlywed and can’t wait to be a parent. He and his wife are planning and praying for a baby. They already have names picked out—and my friend’s wife isn’t even pregnant!

In 735 BC the prophet Isaiah prophesied to the spiritually struggling nation of Judah: “The virgin will conceive…

A Ukrainian Christmas

The people of Ukraine include many wonderful elements in their observance of Christmas. Sometimes wisps of hay are placed on the dinner table as a reminder of the Bethlehem manger. Another portion of their celebration echoes the events of the night when the Savior entered the world. A Christmas prayer is offered, and then the father in the…

The Best Gift Ever

At a winter retreat in northern New England, one of the men asked the question, “What was your favorite Christmas gift ever?”

One athletic man seemed eager to answer.

That's easy,” he said, glancing at his friend next to him. "A few years back, I finished college thinking I was a sure bet to play professional football.…

Christmas Welcome

In Pampanga Province in Luzon, Philippines, you’ll find San Fernando. The historic city hosts the Giant Lantern Festival featuring the quintessential Filipino Christmas tradition—paróls. With simple bamboo, colored paper, and candles, gifted artists create breathtaking star-shaped lanterns to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Filipinos around the world have taken this Christmas tradition with them into suburban neighborhoods, main…

Christmas in the Village

My earliest childhood memories of Christmas date back to a cluster of small villages nestled among cocoa farms and tall mahogany and palm trees. Wearing our new clothes provided by our parents for Christmas, we were a happy group of eight- to ten-year-old kids walking from village to village like the magi who were looking for Baby Jesus…

The Main Reason

Jesus corrects my fuzzy conceptions of God. He reveals a God who comes in search of us, a God who makes room for our freedom, and above all a God who is love.

Those raised in a Christian tradition may miss the shock of Jesus’s message, but love has never been a normal way of describing what…

The Blessing Tree

I read about a young couple whose business had failed, and they had little money to spend at Christmas. They were going to have to move out of their house after the new year. But they didn’t want their holiday season to be spoiled because of it. So they decided to throw a party. When the guests arrived,…

Good News!

World news bombards us from the Internet, television, radio, and mobile devices. The majority seems to describe what’s wrong—crime, terrorism, war, and economic woes. Yet there are times when good news invades the darkest hours of sadness and despair—stories of unselfish acts, a medical breakthrough, or steps toward peace in war-scarred places.

The words of two men recorded…

A Baby Boy

The full-page advertisement in the newspaper caught my eye immediately. Near the top of the light-blue page was the silhouette of a star. In the center of the page were the words: It’s a boy.

Luke 2:11, printed across the bottom of the page, read: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He…

God’s Gift of Grace is Available

The true meaning of Christmas is that Jesus stepped down from the glory of heaven to become a man, endure all that living in a broken world could throw at Him, and then pay the price for all the wrongs the human race has ever done.

The true meaning of Christmas is that because Jesus came to save people from…