Christmas 2019
How we celebrate Christmas
The first time I visited Japan in the winter I was very surprised to see how Japanese people celebrated Christmas. At first I saw many things that looked familiar. There were Christmas decorations at all the malls, I saw Christmas trees and Santa Claus everywhere I walked.
But as I started to talk to some of my Japanese friends about how people here celebrated Christmas, I was surprised to learn that some of the customs here are very different from those in America. The most surprising thing was that in Japan many people eat Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas day. In America, no one eats Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. In America we think of Christmas dinner as always being a home cooked meal shared with family, never something that you would purchase at a fast food restaurant.
I was also surprised to see that everyone gave cakes with whipped cream and strawberries on them as gifts for Christmas. I’ll admit that Japanese Christmas cakes look very Christmasy. But in America, Christmas cakes are usually spice cakes or fruitcakes, they are very brown, not very pretty, and most people don’t think that they taste very good. But making fruitcakes for Christmas is a very old tradition in the west, so we continue to honor it.
One thing that is very different about Christmas in the US compared to Christmas in Japan, is that on Christmas, many people in America go to church. Even people who are not religious and normally never go to church, will often go to church on Christmas. I think that it is a wonderful custom that on Christmas day churches everywhere welcome visitors who want to celebrate. Of course visitors are welcome at church on any Sunday, but on Christmas many churches prepare special services that can be enjoyed by both Christians and non-Christians. So I am really happy to be able to bring this Christmas custom here to Miyako, as we hold our Christmas service together with both Christians and non-Christians alike.
The birth of Jesus brings joy to everyone
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Just over 2,000 years ago, in a small town in Israel, Jesus was born. His birth was greatly anticipated by the Jews, because their prophets had been for telling the birth of a savior for hundreds of years.
In the Bible it’s recorded that angels appeared in the sky and delivered a message to a group of shepherds who were tending their flocks through the night.
And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Luke 2:9-14
These shepherds were poor, uneducated Jewish peasants, not the kind of people you would expect to receive such an important message. But the angels told the shepherds that the news of Jesus birth was good news of great joy for all people. The news of Jesus birth is meant to bring great joy to the poor and the rich, to the educated and uneducated, to people from every country in the world.
Have you ever seen a Christmas play, or a nativity scene? In many countries around Christmas time it is common to have arrange figures representing the different people who are part of the Christmas story. There is always a baby that represents Jesus, and figures that represent Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ parents. And there are figures for the shepherds and angels. There are also always three wise men, who represent foreign kings from the east, that is Asia, to whom God also revealed Jesus birth. In this Christmas nativity we see both poor Jewish shepherds, and wealthy wise men from Asia together celebrating Jesus birth. Jesus birth was good news for all people.
So today at Christmas time, people from all over the world celebrate Jesus birth. Not only Americans, but Japanese as well. Likewise, one does not need to be a Christian to celebrate Jesus birth, because Jesus birth was good news of great joy to all peoples.
Why does Jesus birth bring joy to all?
But what was so special about Jesus birth, that the angles thought the whole world would be glad to hear about it? The good news was that a Savior had been born. Jesus was born to be the savior of the world.
You might hear that and wonder, what do I need to be saved from? But if we stop and think, deep in our hearts there may be many things that we long to be saved from. We might be afraid of people who have hurt us, or afraid that people will discover some wrong that we have done. We might be afraid of sickness or death. We might look out at the world and fear conflicts and unrest. All of these are troubling problems. All of these are an indication that something is not as it should be, that something is broken in this world.
According to the Bible the fundamental problem that we face is that humans have a broken relationship with their Creator. The Bible says that while there are many Spirits, there is One God who created all things. This One God created all the other spirits, the physical world and all of humanity. In the beginning there was only the One God, and nothing else. God created humans to know Him, and to serve Him, and to rule over and care for the world that He created. In the world that God created there was only peace and harmony, life and joy under God’s protection and rule. However instead of serving God, we rejected Him, and decided instead to live for ourselves. The root problem of all human suffering is that we have made our Creator our enemy.
And yet instead of abandoning us, our Creator sent us a Savior, Jesus, to make peace between us and Him.
As the angles left the shepherds they sang a song, saying,
Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased.
Luke 2:14
Jesus birth signified a way for us to enter back into God’s pleasure, to be reconciled back to our Father. Through Jesus God promises peace to those who believe in Him.
This Christmas we look back at Jesus birth and remember that our Creator has not abandoned us. We remember that while we were lost, He sent a savior to rescue us. We rejoice that God has sent Jesus to be a light in the darkness, to free us from bondage, to forgive our sins. This is indeed good news that brings great joy to all people.