make Christmas more than just another birthday

shhhh
the baby is sleeping
the one whose birth we celebrate Friday

Christmas
it's "safer" to keep Him as a baby
small, dependent upon us to meet His needs

problem
He isn't a baby
He grew up to be a man and He doesn't depend on us

Good Friday
is not a pretty, peaceful scene we display on our mantles
it was violent-He was flogged, spat upon, ridiculed, nailed to a cross, died

Easter 
He bears scars, 
He is the the resurrected Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Master

shhhh?                                           

no, please, wake up!                       

do not keep this Good News quiet

share with anyone who will listen

that a Savior, Jesus Christ has come

and He has conquered the power of sin and death 

Christmas

we need it because it is the birth of Immanuel, God with us

without it there would be no Easter

Easter

we need it because without the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus

Christmas would be just another birthday 

"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Philippians 2:3-11