True Meaning of Christmas

Don’t Miss the True Meaning of Christmas

It is easy to spend more time on the externals of Christmas than on its meaning. It is like couples who spend so much time on the wedding that they never focus on their marriage. I have grandkids, and I enjoy the giving, the family time, the food, and the music. But we must remember the meaning of Christmas, and I think a woman named Anna in Luke 2:36-38 helps us do that. We read Simeon’s story first for context. He was told by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before seeing the Lord’s Christ, and when he held the child he said his eyes had seen God’s salvation. He told Mary that the child was appointed for the fall and rising of many, and that thoughts from many hearts would be revealed. Even this morning, your view of this child reveals your heart.

Who Was Anna?

Anna was a woman, a widow, and 84 years old. Widows were vulnerable and struggled financially, and she could easily have grown bitter toward God. She did not turn her back on him. She was married seven years before her husband died. “Do you know that you’re never too old to serve the Lord.” And she was a prophetess, which does not mean she was a fortune teller. “She doesn’t work on a psychic hotline.” It means she taught truth, as Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah did. Here was a woman who pursued God and was not distracted by her circumstances. I see three truths in her life.

Your Walk with God Matters

Her father’s name, Phanuel, means face of God, so she probably heard about Jehovah from a young age. But her heritage is not what stands out. Her piety and her walk with God does. I did not come from the ideal Christian home, but it is not your past that matters as much as the present and the future. Imagine being married a year, then four, then six, with great dreams, and in year seven your husband dies. Anna did not let her difficult circumstances throw her off in her walk with the Lord. You may have lost a spouse or a child, or you may have cancer, or be struggling in ways no one knows. Do not allow your circumstances to distract you from your walk with God, because it matters.

Your Service to God Matters

Luke says she served God with fasting and prayer night and day, not when it was convenient. She was committed, constant, and diligent. The word served is used of priests in the temple. It is “worshipful service to God.” If you sang from your heart, or worked in the nursery from your heart, God receives it as worship. Fasting means giving special attention to prayer and setting aside even food to focus on him. Her prayer was intercession, the same word as Philippians 4:6, making specific requests to God.

Your Response to God Matters

Verse 38 says that coming in at that very hour, she gave thanks to God and spoke of him to all who were waiting for redemption. When you understand the true meaning of Christmas, you respond with praise. And you respond by sharing the good news. “If we can’t talk about Jesus during Christmas during December I don’t know when else we can talk about Jesus.” It might be taking cookies next door or doing something special for your co-workers. A member of our church whose funeral we had the day before was full of Jesus. On the last day of his life he spoke to a young woman at the grocery store about Jesus and mailed a plaque to a new granddaughter that said Jesus loves her.

Many people missed the true meaning of Christmas. The innkeeper, the religious people, those in political office, and the people of Jerusalem all missed it. Those of us who know the story well can miss it too. Anna did not, because she understood who this babe was and what he would do, which was redeem. Redemption has three parts.

First, redemption implies bondage. If someone is free, they do not need to be redeemed, but we are enslaved to sin, and the wages of sin is death. Second, “redemption also implies a cost.” You cannot buy back your own soul with the world’s wealth. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Doing works of righteousness will not redeem your soul. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Third, redemption implies ownership. We have been bought with a price, so we do not get to say, I’m going to do it my way. That is not a Bible verse.