Christmas is about going to Starbucks and getting one of those seasonal drinks they have (with my preference this year being the egg nog chai latte). Christmas is about watching all the classic movies like The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life and Christmas in Connecticut. Christmas is about hanging all those really tacky ornaments that I made in kindergarten a million years ago. Christmas is all these things.

But Christmas at its essence is about a new start. God became an infant that first Christmas night and the world got a new start. Hope was born into the world in a dirty manger in a filthy barn and nothing has ever been the same since.

Christmas means that there is no such thing as a lost cause or a lost hope. It means that there is no one past redeeming, no matter what that person has done. It means that no matter how far you stray or how long you stay, there’s always a way to come Home.

Rejoice for Christmas means you have a second chance. You have a billion second chances, because no matter how many times you screw up or fail or fall off the wagon, there’s grace. Like one of my favorite Switchfoot songs says, “Every breath is a second chance.”

So come to the manger this year and see the infant Jesus. Fall on your face in the dirt before Him and worship Him as your Redemption, your Sacrifice, the One who took your place and did for you what you could never do for yourself. Adore the One who paid for your sin and make you right with God forever.

Open up your heart and your wallet to Him. Whatever your treasure is, lay it at His feet. After seeing Jesus, what do you have that’s worth keeping with clenched fists? Lay yourself at His feet and offer all of you to Him for whatever He wants to do in and through you for the rest of your life. Give him your broken hearts and dreams and lives and watch in wonder and awe as He gives you His heart and His dreams and His life.

“Emmanuel, our God is with us, our God is with us still. Emmanuel, He has not left us and He never will”

Amen.