Advent What if there was no Christmas?

I have to say that I have never really thought about what it would be like if there was no Christmas.  It is such a part of our lives, our history, that we don’t really think about what it would be like without it.  If time was suck forever in the middle of December.  It would be cold, everyone would be bundled up and there would be snow covering everything, a lot like it is right now come to think of it.  But there would be no Christmas lights to brighten the night, there would be no Christmas trees in our homes covered with multicolored lights and ornaments, there would be no colorful decorations, no Christmas music, no candles, no presents, no manger.  Just snow and cold and winter for as long as you could remember, and as long as your parents could remember. 

In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis the 4 Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, & Lucy entered Narnia through the wardrobe in the old Professors house, and they noticed that the world was different.  It was missing something.  There were no sounds.  No birds chirping, no water running, just snow falling.  There was also no color.  No green trees, no colorful flowers, no blue lakes, it was all white and very cold with the snow that covered everything and that continued to fall.  There was no hope of Spring of the snow melting to reveal the new life underneath, all there is is a constant, cold, blanket of white. 

A world with no Christmas would be a hurting, dreary, and cold world that longed for hope and faith.  One of the joys of Christmas is that it reminds us that Spring is coming.  It reminds us that new life will start again as the snow melts and the weather warms.  It reminds us that flowers will bloom, and color will be restored to the dearly grey world.  If there were no Christmas, we would live in a dreary hope-less world. 

But for us, there is Christmas.  C.S. Lewis was a great theologian, along with being a great writer.  The characters in his Chronicles of Narnia series were not created by accident, but they were created to help tell the Christian story.  In the Chronicles of Narnia there is only one thing that can save Narnia from eternal winter.  There is only one person who can bring Christmas to the land, Aslan, the lion.  Aslan is the creator and King of Narnia, although he has been gone for a very long time.  For C.S. Lewis, Aslan is the Christ figure.  Only when Aslan returns is Father Christmas able to begin his journey to bring gifts to people around Narnia.  Even though Aslan clearly has power over the White Witch, he chooses to work through human beings to accomplish his will to free Narnia.  And he offers his own blood to pay for Edmund’s sin of treachery and deceit.  After Aslan is killed by the White Witch he then rises from the dead and the debt of sin is paid and death is conquered.  It is because of this entire Christian story that we celebrate the gift of Christmas, that we have hope and faith in our lives and in our world.

Aslan is the only one who can break the spell that the White Witch has placed on Narnia so that it is always winter and never Christmas.  Without him the world would remain forever in winter.  The world of Narnia was taken over by the White Witch who made their world a miserable place to live, and the people of Narnia waited for the return of Aslan.  .  The joy and hope of Christmas was only a dream to the people who lived in the land of Narnia, and yet they had hope that Aslan would return someday.  They knew that when he returned the world would be changed forever, and so it was.  Our world is not very different from the world of Narnia.  Our world was a world where there was no Christmas until one day over 2,000 year ago when everything changed.  It is with this knowledge of what a world without Christmas would look like that should give us a greater appreciation of the miracle of a Messiah born to a young girl named Mary, a baby who would change the world forever.  When Christ came into our world it was changed forever.  With the birth of the Savior we are given the opportunity to accept the new life that only he can give.

A baby was born in the little town of Bethlehem, and so our lives and our world were changed forever.  The coming of Christ broke the power of sin and death over us.  Because of the birth of Christ, our Savior, we celebrate Christmas with the joy and hope of a people who have been given the opportunity to accept new life.  We celebrate as a people who have been freed from eternal winter, as a people who have hope and joy that was given to us by the birth of a baby.

God bless, Rev. Liz Arakelian, www.LivingHopeEC.org