Transcript
A (0:08)
In the United Kingdom, at least for as long as I can remember, the day after Christmas Day has been called Boxing Day. As a child, it struck me as a very curious description for the day after Christmas. It apparently was not the one day in the year when you were allowed to fight with your big brother. In fact, I remember that people seemed to think it was a kind of tidy up the mess day after Christmas, the day you put everything back in boxes, hence Boxing Day. And I had my own version of why it was called Boxing Day, because Christmas was apart from small gifts on my birthday, the one time in the year you would get a special present. And we looked forward to it, anticipating it for weeks in advance. And it was a magical day. And I suspect, like many other children on Boxing Day, I would try to recapture the feelings of the day before by putting my presents back into their boxes and then we'd open up the boxes again, hence Boxing Day. But of course, it was never the same as opening them for the first time. It could never be the same. Christmas Day was Christmas Day 24 hours only once a year, unrepeated, until near the end of the next long year, another year to wait for the excitement, the joy, the presence. And as a child, I hated this letdown and the demands it made on my patients. And try as I might, I could not make Christmas last. And so when I later became a Christian, I couldn't help asking myself, is it possible to make Christmas last? And that's where the words of Hebrews chapter 13, verse 8 have come to mean so much to me. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. I suspect I may have referred to these words several times in the course of the year and maybe pointed out that the author of Hebrews thinks of yesterday not as the day before today, but what he elsewhere calls the days of Jesus flesh. And today is not just the current period of 24 hours. It's the two day healing he refers to in chapter three, verse 13, when he quotes Psalm 95 and says, Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the wilderness. In other words, when he says today, he means all the days between the ascension of Jesus and His return and final glory. He's the same today and tomorrow and the next day. And he will be forever. He will be forever the same person he was when he came and lived among us in the days of his flesh. He'll be the same Jesus who was born in Bethlehem, who walked the dusty roads of Galilee, who was crucified outside Jerusalem, who rose again and ascended and is seated at the right hand of God and makes intercession for us, and who one day will come again in glory. That's the Jesus whose birth we celebrate. And listen, Jesus has not changed since yesterday. I said that as a child I thought Boxing Day had to do with boxes in which my presents had come. But actually it's called Boxing Day for another reason entirely. It's because the day after Christmas Day traditionally was the day Christians would put food and other things in boxes and distribute them to the needy. In a way, it was saying, at least symbolically, that in his birth the Lord Jesus gave himself to us, and in his death he gave Himself for us. And now he lives to take care of us in our need. And so in response, in Jesus name, we want to take care of you as well in your need. And that's surely one way we can make Christmas last. That's how we can extend what it means beyond ourselves. Did you get enough at Christmas this year? Maybe more than enough. Then remember that inasmuch as you have done something for one of the least of Jesus, brothers, you do it for him who has done so much for you. And if the day after Christmas Day is a holiday where you live, perhaps you should take just a moment to think of one simple way in which you can make Christmas last, not just for yourself, but also for others who so deeply need to know our Lord Jesus Christ, God's inexpressible gift. Sa.