The Historical Reality Behind Christmas Cheer

There is an actual historical explanation for the optimism and unprecedented joy Americans feel at Christmas time. And it's not simply because we sing wonderful old songs and eat rich (i.e. fattening) foods in large quanitities. It's a fact that the things we talk about and sing about in December are rooted in wonderful truths of history.

No, Saint Nicholas does not really wear a red suit and leap down chimneys, but he is based on a real figure. Nicholas of Myra lived about 1000 years after Christ. Born into wealth, he lost both of his parents as a young man. But as he became an adult, he took the Christian truths he'd been taught by his parents seriously. He literally gave away his inherited fortune to needy people and desperate souls throughout the land where he lived. (It would correspond to the nation of Turkey today.) Nicholas became so beloved due to his sacrificial generosity that he was ultimately appointed as Bishop of Myra. Eventually he was persecuted for his faith, locked away in prison, beaten and finally released. He died of complications shortly after leaving prison.

Saint Nicholas is not a legend. Neither is Good King Wenceslas. Remember that old carol that you never understood as a child? When he went out one snowy night during the Feast of Stephen, he was celebrating the second day of Christmas just about 900 years after Christ. Wenceslas was the Duke of Bohemia in a region which today corresponds to Czechoslavakia. Like Nicholas, his faith in Christ had given him a heart for the poor. He literally became one of the most beloved royal figures in history due to his generous heart and his ongoing concern for the needy people of his land.

The old carol actually narrates the story of a bitterly cold evening when Wenceslas and a helper went out into the streets to care for a desperate old man. The night was so cold and the snow was so deep that the young aid was unable to continue. But when he placed his feet in the footsteps Wenceslas had left in the snow, the footprints literally warmed him and enabled him to keep walking.

The particular incident is probably just a legend. But there's a reason young Wenceslas became so beloved that legends could be fabricated: because he did amazing things for people who could never repay him.

These amazing figures of history were not just nice guys: they were followers of Christ. And in their desire to love God with all their hearts, they always recalled Christ's observation: "When you do deeds of kindness for the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."

May we all love Christ with that sort of intensity this Christmas.

A Sense of Timing

John Maxwell says being a leader requires more than the ability to motivate people. Effective leaders must lead other people to the right plan at the right time. Maxwell explains it this way:

• The wrong plan at the wrong time creates problems.
• The right plan at the wrong time is premature.
• The wrong plan at the right time is polarizing.
• The right plan at the right time results in progress.

The priority of the right plan at the right moment reminds me of those familiar words from Galatians 4:4. "But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law." The power of the incarnation of Christ was about the birth of a child to a virgin, and yet it was about so much more.

The eternal inventor of biology could have planted an embryo in a virgin at any moment during all the thousands of years when the world was awaiting a savior. It was a miracle for us, not for him. Instead, God waited until the time was full:

• The Greeks has spread the Greek language across the known world so that, at the right moment, everyone would be able to read or understand the Gospel in Greek.
• The Romans had united much of the world under one emblem so that borders were easily crossed by evangelists.
• Roman roads made travel easier for preachers and teachers, and Roman soldiers dispersed around the known world made it safer.
• And at the first moment all the advantages were in place, God planted the seed and lighted the match.

And so Jesus was the right idea at the most opportune moment in history. God planned it all and brought it about when time was full.

You and I sometimes confuse the right timing with "my timing." And its' true, a little energy and a bit of ingenuity can make interesting things happen. But when our plans are bathed in prayer and alligned the the eternal purposes of God's heart, they always accomplish more and bring about eternal benefits. The trick is being discerning enough, and patient enough, to seek God's timing for our "big ideas."

David wrote in Psalm 27:14, "Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord!" Those lyrics are as powerful today as it was when the warrior king first sang them. It's an idea that would make us all more prayerful, more patient, and...yes, more powerful. Wait upon the Lord and look for the moments when the time is full.