What’s the point of Christmas? Decorations? Gifts? Parties? Shopping? Lights? Trees? The birth of Christ?
The prophet Isaiah gave us the answer hundreds of years before the first Christmas.
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
The Messiah will come, born of a virgin and His name will literally mean “God with us” for Jesus came in the flesh.
Yes, of course the point of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of our Savior, but how much of our season is filled with greeting the Savior?
How much time do we spend with Jesus during Christmas? Only you can answer that for yourself, but I want to look at a story of two sisters who both loved Jesus and were friends of Jesus, but one missed the whole point and the other chose the better option.
In the Gospel of Luke, we encounter this story of two sisters who invited Jesus to their house. You may have heard of these two sisters, Mary and Martha. They had a brother Lazarus, the same Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead, but that’s another story.
A little context for our story, Jesus has been in his public ministry for a couple of years and is beginning his final journey into Jerusalem. Jesus knew that his time was limited and that he must go to Jerusalem to die for the sins of the world. On his way, he continued to teach, heal and perform other miracles.
As he crossed through Bethany, he stopped in at the house of his friends, Mary and Martha. At first, this seems pretty straight forward, until you are the one inviting people over. Now inviting Jesus over was not just inviting one single guy to dinner, he came with a crowd. At minimum there were the 12 disciples and possibly other followers.
If I host anything at my house, I want to clean the house from top to bottom before my guests arrive. So it’s an all-day affair to have people over for dinner. There’s cleaning and prepping to do, then hosting, and more cleaning.
Consider all that as you read Luke 10:38-42.
[38] Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. [39] And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. [40] But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” [41] But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, [42] but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (ESV)
Martha gets a bad rap, but she was just trying to be a good host. A crowd shows up at your door, what are you going to do? I got to get more chairs, I have to get more plates out, I need more… you name it. It’s party time and you enter in full host mode.
But then you look over and see your sister just relaxing with your guest of honor. She’s just sitting there listening. She doing what you want to do, but you are too busy to do it. What’s the point of having a guest over if you can’t enjoy his company? But how can you enjoy the company when there is so much to do?
Tasks become so important and can prevent us from the relationship.
A few years ago, I took the youth group on a Spring Retreat. I started a practice on our retreats to actually encourage the students to “retreat,” by taking an hour of quiet and solitude to spend time with Jesus. I would prepare a Psalm and a few guided questions for those who needed it, but encouraged them to go off alone for an hour, with their Bible and just enjoy the presence of Jesus, whatever that might look like fore each student.
At the end, we would all come back and share what we learned or experienced in our time. Students talked about how fast an hour went and how precious their time with Jesus was. They shared creative prayers, new insights in Scripture, and appreciation of God’s creation.
One young lady was so stressed and frustrated. So after our gathering, I pulled her aside and asked her what was wrong. She was so upset that everyone had a good time and she didn’t even get through all the questions. (Do you hear a Martha here?) She said she was so tired that she couldn’t concentrate and was troubled that she didn’t finish the task.
I responded to her, “Did you ever consider that you could just admit to Jesus your weakness and that you were tired and needed a nap, and just enjoyed sleeping in his presence? The questions were not the assignment. Enjoying the presence of Jesus was the assignment, the questions were an aid, but not the assignment.”
Not that I want all the students to sleep in that hour, but learning the exercise of resting in Jesus is huge. Jesus wasn’t disappointed in her not completing the paper, He was sad that she missed time with him because of her task driven mentality.
What is the point of Christmas? Spending time with Jesus, “God with us.”
Then why do we get so task driven with decorating, baking, shopping, gift giving and the such?
Mary, now she got it. She recognized that time with Jesus was precious and she enjoyed every moment she had with the Rabbi. The fact that Jesus recognize Mary and Martha and invited them into his community was huge in their culture. Women rarely were given the opportunity to learn from the Rabbis, and here the Rabbi came to their house and taught them. Jesus saw the value of women and elevated women throughout his ministry.
Perhaps Mary thought of Psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God.” She sat with the other disciples, at the feet of Jesus, and listened to him. Listening is key to discipleship. Hearing his voice and following his lead is the most basic form of discipleship. Mary understood this and joyfully learned from the Master.
Martha got caught up with service, Mary with worship. Service is important and there are times to serve, and there are times to just be with God.
I came to this understanding a few years ago as I reflected on this passage. I too easily fall into the Martha model. I realized that I find it easy and comforting to identify as a servant of God. With this outlook, it is easy to get busy doing good things, and not realize when doing things for God became a distraction from being with God.
I had to recognize that in Christ, I am not just a servant of God, but a son of God (John 1:12). How does my relationship with God change when I perceive it through the lens of sonship? As a servant, I just need to focus on how I serve. As son, I have to deal with my insecurities, shame and feelings of underserving of this position and accept the love and forgiveness of our Heavenly Father.
The place of a son or daughter is to be with the Father. Mary chose this good portion, the necessary thing, to be with the Savior. God’s plan of redemption was set in place to give us the opportunity of experiencing his presence in Immanuel, God with us. The highest form or worship, the best present we can offer him is to seek his presence.
C.S. Lewis claims, “I find an experience fully God-centered, asking of God no gift more urgently than His presence, the gift of Himself, joyous to the highest degree, and unmistakably real.”
I don’t want to get down on Martha, things do need to get done. We just have to check our priorities and make sure we put spending time with Jesus at the top of our list. In our decorating, our baking, our shopping, our festivities and gift giving, we need to carve out space to stop, sit and listen to our Savior, to be with Immanuel.
How can you spend more time with Jesus this week?
This week, I want to challenge you to take a few minutes with Jesus each day and read from the Sermon on the Mount, the longest recorded sermon we have that Jesus gave. To be clear, I believe the whole Bible is the Word of God and that we are spending time with Jesus whenever we read from it, but in the spirit that Mary displayed, I thought we could sit and listen to the teachings of Jesus this week.
Thursday 12/10 – Matthew 5:1-16
Friday 12/11 – Matthew 5:17-30
Saturday 12/13 – Matthew 5:31-48
Sunday 12/14 – Matthew 6:1-15
Monday 12/15 – Matthew 6:16-34
Tuesday 12/16 – Matthew 7:1-14
Wednesday 12/17 – Matthew 7:15-29
I look forward to hearing how your time with Jesus goes this week!
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