{"id":24997,"date":"2016-12-24T05:54:43","date_gmt":"2016-12-24T10:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huntsville.dopperonline.ca\/?p=24997"},"modified":"2016-12-23T14:10:14","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T19:10:14","slug":"christmas-messages-local-clergy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/christmas-messages-local-clergy\/","title":{"rendered":"What does Christmas mean in 2016? Messages from local clergy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reverend Charlie Lyons, Senior Pastor, Riverside Baptist Church<\/h4>\n

Christmas Services at Riverside Baptist Church, 11 Riverside Dr., Huntsville, (more info: <\/strong>www.riversidebaptist.ca<\/strong><\/a>):
\n<\/strong>Christmas Eve Service – Saturday at 6:00pm
\nFestival of Nine Lessons & Carols Service – Sunday at 10:30am<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the most wonderful time of the year\u2014or so the old song goes. The Christmas season offers a unique opportunity to experience God\u2019s love and grace in the midst of real life. Christmas means not just hope for the world, despite all its unending problems, but hope for you and me, despite all our unending failings.<\/p>\n

<\/broadstreet-zone><\/strong><\/div>\n

I would venture that most have heard about that special little boy born to a young couple on a starlit night. And, yes, many have heard that this little boy was claimed to be the Jewish Messiah. Every year, millions flock to hear Handel\u2019s Messiah around the holidays. But the truth of Christmas invites us to push past the quaintness of the manger scene. Most have not heard that the little Jewish boy was, in fact, as one person put it in the most exact and literal sense of the word, \u201cthe God by whom all things were made.”<\/p>\n

We have many ideas about God in our culture, few of them about the God presented in an honest reading of the Bible. A God who was only holy would not have come down to us in Jesus Christ. He would have simply demanded that we pull ourselves together, that we be moral and holy enough to merit a relationship with him. However, a deity that was an \u2018all\u2010accepting God of love\u2019 wouldn’t have needed to come to Earth either. This God of the modern imagination would have just overlooked sin and evil and embraced us. Both the God of moralism and the God of relativism make Christmas unnecessary. Why would God need to become human in order to live and die in our place if we can fulfill the requirements of righteousness ourselves?<\/p>\n

If Christmas is just a nice legend commemorated by painted plywood figures on a church lawn, in a sense we are on our own. But if Christmas is true, then we can be saved by grace. Jesus Christ\u2014the Messiah, the Saviour\u2014came as light into the darkness and hurt and pain of the world\u2014your world. That world then, just like our world now, including our lives, needs His light to illuminate, clarify, guide, and heal. Jesus Christ offers His peace, joy, and all-consuming love, the true gifts of Christmas, but you have to reach out and receive them. If you do, there couldn’t possibly be a more wonderful time of the year.<\/p>\n

\n

Reverend John Rathinaswamy, St. Mary of the Assumption<\/h4>\n

Christmas mass schedule
\n<\/strong>Dec. 24 Saturday 4:00 p.m. (Huntsville-St. Marys) Children’s Mass<\/strong>
\nDec. 24 Saturday 6:00 p.m. (Baysville-St. Kateri)
\nDec. 24 Saturday 8:00 p.m. (Huntsville-St. Marys)
\nDec. 25 Sunday 10:00 AM (Huntsville-St. Marys)<\/p>\n

Christmas introduces us to the mystery of the incarnation, that is, the mystery of God\u2019s own Son taking flesh and coming to live among us. We celebrate our human birth of flesh gloriously.<\/p>\n

God gave us a wonderful gift of flesh. The word \u201cIncarnation\u201d does not occur in the Bible. The word \u2018Incarnation\u2019 has been coined to describe the doctrine of which we are speaking. It comes from the Latin word \u201ccarnis\u201d which means \u201cflesh\u201d. The Incarnation is a great mystery of the faith, and perhaps many would see it as less than perfect. God, becoming flesh! The flesh continues to live in the form of human beings. Flesh beautifies the humanity and all other creatures. Flesh is the most important part of our bodies. The flesh is being born again and again in our human birth. This Incarnation does not stop with Jesus alone but being continued for ever.<\/p>\n

What has been meant to us the word \u2018Incarnation\u2019 in the present age? First of all, we don\u2019t have clear knowledge about God. The true God is not known in some areas. We come to know from the history and literature what the Gods are like which men have invented for themselves. \u201cThe Gods of the Greeks and Romans were cruel and revengeful. They were untruthful and unfaithful. They quarreled among themselves and tried to defeat each other\u2019s plans.” Our God is immanent God and dwells in us. God, whose essential being is \u201cSpirit\u201d! We can feel it or experience it. We can\u2019t see the Spirit. This Spirit is neither man nor woman? It is beyond our capacity to comprehend.<\/p>\n

If it had not been for the coming of Jesus in the Incarnation, we would not have the Festival of Christmas and commercial society cannot celebrate the Santa Claus parade to get more benefits. The Christianity would have not existed. There would be no Churches. We could save a lot of money to develop our human society. In the Name of Jesus we build more Churches in every nook and corner of the world where we don\u2019t feel so comfortable to worship our God.<\/p>\n

It is always exciting to think of the Christmas season. I am an Indian come to Canada fourteen years ago and learn from this country that Christmas is no more a religious festival. It is a common festival to all especially in Christian countries. Everyone wants to celebrate this festival regardless of religion.<\/p>\n

The secular agenda is to secularize Christmas – to turn it from a holiday celebrating the historical birth of Jesus into just another commercial event. The secular society is very powerful to influence people to fall in their spirit. The Spirit of materialism is being born in our younger generation\u2019s blood. The teenage boys and girls desire to go more to the sin city club than the Holy city, Churches. We tend to go our own way today and resolve to go the Lord\u2019s way tomorrow, a tomorrow which never comes. Like recovering from an illness, we should take one day at a time, do one good thing at a time, and resist one strength at a time. Our strength is to bring unity among ourselves to foster the human values in our society.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on Doppler! Sign up for our free, twice-weekly newsletter here<\/u>.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/broadstreet-zone>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reverend Charlie Lyons, Senior Pastor, Riverside Baptist Church Christmas Services at Riverside Baptist Church, 11 Riverside Dr., Huntsville, (more info: www.riversidebaptist.ca): Christmas Eve Service – Saturday at 6:00pm Festival of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1903,"featured_media":24998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-24997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-breaking"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat does Christmas mean in 2016? Messages from local clergy - Huntsville Doppler<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is the meaning of Christmas in 2016? 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