Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Have you ever stopped to think what it would be like if Christ had not been born? I read a story about a Christmas card that depicted a preacher who fell asleep on Christmas morning and dreamed that Christ had not come. In his dream, he looked around his home and found nothing representing Christmas—no tree topped with a star and laden with lights and shiny decorations, no stockings hanging from the mantel, no wreath on the door, no Christmas bells.

When he took a look around town, there were no steeples towering over the buildings, for there were no churches. Back inside his house, he found big gaps in his bookshelves because there were no books about the celebration of Christ’s coming. Although there were Holy Bibles, they ended with the book of Malachi with no gospel, no promise of hope or salvation.

Can you imagine no Christmas—no Christ child who came to save us from our sins? No churches in which to worship him? No joyful chimes filling the air? No hymns about Christ such as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “What Child is This?” No Christmas Cantatas? No delightful Christmas plays with little shepherd boys wrapped in bathrobes with tennis shoes peeking underneath and little girls with angel wings? No beautiful and fun secular music like “Jingle Bells: and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas?”

No Christmas parades with colorful floats and joyful people waving their Christmas greetings honoring the birth of our Savior?

No bright Christmas twinkling silver stars? No Christmas trees topped with angels and brightly wrapped presents underneath? No Christmas cards?

No Santa Claus and no visits from him to homes, hospitals, and nursing homes?

No Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer, Frosty the snowman and Charlie Brown’s Christmas shows and other Christmas Classic TV dramas?

No Christmas celebrations with family and friends? No aromas of cooking floating through the house? No tables laden with turkey or ham or both, and all the trimmings?

No Christmas shopping? No excursions to woods or farms or shopping centers to buy or cut down a tree? No family gatherings to decorate the Christmas tree? No stores and shopping centers decorated to the hilt with glitter? No Salvation Army bell ringers on the streets? No street decorations? No tree lighting celebrations all across the nation?

No Christmas baskets filled with all sorts of goodies, including fruit and nuts and candies? No gifts of calling cards to those far away to call home? No candy canes or cookies sprinkled with red and green sugar and shaped like trees and bells? No special Christmas cakes and fudge?

No reading of the Christmas story from the Book of St. Luke before the Christmas feast? No prayers of thanksgiving lifted to heaven thanking the Father for what he has done for us? No outpouring of love that happens nearly as much during the Christmas season?

Aren’t we glad that we can worship in freedom and enjoy so much during the Christmas season and give thanks to God for his precious gift, Jesus, to us?