Merry Christmas everyone!  And in fitting with the joyous season, let’s go see what is essentially a live action/animation horror film whose characters come across like wax zombies and scar you for life more than Chuck-E-Cheese band performers!

I’m talking of course about Disney’s A Christmas Carol.  A timeless story that has been Disney-fied to the brim and is sure to draw millions of viewers.

Be warned…this one’s not for the kiddies, but for all the visual fireworks and occasional inexplicable sequences (like Scrooge being reduced to one inch complete with a mouse voice?), it stays true to Charles Dickens’ vision for the story.

If you are unfamiliar with this classic, A Christmas Carol chronicles the events of a night before Christmas in the life of one of the biggest jerks in all of literature: Ebenezer Scrooge.  He is visited by his dead former business partner, then three ghosts from his past, present, and future Christmases – they all come with a message and a warning.  The heart of their message is basically “Stop being a hater,” and their warning is “If you don’t, your eternal afterlife is pretty much the worst situation you could imagine.”

In other words, “Scrooge, you better rediscover your soul or there will be horrible consequences.”

Can I take you on a similar journey?  With my apologies to Charles Dickens, I’d like us to look at three Christmases as well.  The first is Christmas Past…in fact, it’s the first Christmas ever.  Picture the scene as we travel back through 2000 years:

There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.”

At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises:

Glory to God in the heavenly heights,
Peace to all men and women on earth who please him (Luke 2:8-14).

As we’re standing at this scene, I have to ask you…

Is Jesus your Savior?  The first Christmas is a radical scene of angelic armies, overwhelmed shepherds, and exhausted parents. But even more drastic is the fact that God wrapped Himself in flesh and was born of a virgin so He could bring salvation to this dark and sinful world – which includes you and me. Let this scene remind you that the God who created you loves you so much that He chose to die rather than live without you.

Which brings me to Christmas Present.  We are surrounded by people who do not know Jesus as their Savior and think this holiday is about ribbons, tags, packages, boxes, and bags (shout out to The Grinch!).  They get so mired in the glitter and material that they miss the truth that Christmas is a time to be reminded that salvation is available for all who call on the name of Jesus.

And look! There’s you with your friends at a Christmas party.  I can see your lips moving but I can’t hear what you’re saying. It looks like you’re starting a conversation about Jesus Christ and why He came to earth.  That’s awesome, because the message of the gospel is the greatest gift you could give anyone.

Finally, let’s look into Christmas Future.  This is a very different Christmas, because it’s not about the first time Jesus came to planet Earth, but the second time.  This time, He is not a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.  Here’s how John describes the scene:

Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven.
And everyone will see him—
even those who pierced him.
And all the nations of the world
will mourn for him. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like flames of fire.  His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one. I died, but look – I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave (Revelation 1:7;13-15;17-18).

The ghost of Christmas future in A Christmas Carol is scary…

But the return of Christ is waaaay scarier.  That is, if you don’t know Him.  So what will that scene really look like in your future?  If you’ve trusted Christ, it will be a day of deliverance.  If not, it will be a day of mourning.

So this Christmas, help your friends prepare for the last Christmas , when Jesus returns to earth to set up His forever Kingdom.

In the meantime…God bless us, everyone!

Would you ever make a movie?  I’m not talking about a YouTube upload that you and your friends filmed with your cell phone…I mean a real movie.  If so, what would you do?

Let’s take it a step further.  What if you had pretty much unlimited time, equipment, and cash?  That’s the situation James Cameron found himself in a few years back, and the result is the visually stunning sci-fi cowboys and Indians movie called Avatar.

And when I say he had money, I mean he had bank.  Cost estimates for Avatar run between 300 million to half a BILLION dollars. With that insane amount of money that dwarfs the gross domestic product of over a third of this planet, you better create an out-of-this-world place that rocks.

And James Cameron did that with Avatar. Don’t expect any dialogue that would make Shakespeare nervous (i.e. “You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen” …wow …just, wow).

But do anticipate the 3-D cinematic equivalent of a 162-minute roller coaster ride that will leave you wishing for another round of Avatar.

By the way, do you know what “avatar” means?  No, not “freaky blue creature that looks like a misshapen cousin of Jar-Jar Binks.” It actually comes from the Hindu religion, meaning,

The descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form or some manifest shape; the incarnation of a god. (www.dictionary.reference.com)

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that this movie was released around Christmas? Because at the heart of this holiday is the shocking, amazing, and breathtaking truth that the true Creator, Jesus, became the real incarnation of the deity to earth:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,  who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

No one has ever seen God, but God’s one and only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known (John 1:1-3; 14; 18).

Think about it…the eternal and all-powerful God wrapped Himself in human flesh to live on the planet He created and dwell with the inhabitants He formed from the dust of the ground.

In the film Avatar, the main character named Jake links with his own avatar so he can infiltrate the “Na’vi” creatures. But the God of the universe, named Yahweh, incarnated Himself as Jesus so He could accomplish the most important mission of all time:

“Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).

As the Christian band 4Him says, “That’s such a strange way to save the world.” What a wild idea that God would step down from the throne of heaven and allow himself to be subjected to life in this evil and fallen world…and for what?

To die.  The only way to save us from an eternity separated from God was for God Himself to pay the penalty for all our wrongdoing.  And the only way for God to die was to take on humanity.

Jesus came into our world as a visitor to accomplish His salvation mission.  He lived a perfect life and died a horrible death so we could have hope here on Earth and a glorious eternity in heaven.

So this Christmas, remember that the scene of Jesus lying in a manger has the dark shadow of the Cross in the background, but behind the Cross is the doorway to heaven, open to anyone willing to trust in Jesus alone for salvation.

If that doesn’t rock your world, I’m not sure what could!