The Passion of the Christmas

On December 25th we celebrate the birth of Christ: the day God entered his created world in the shape of a baby.

That is indeed cause for celebrations. But it’s not the whole cause.

Because Christmas Day is not the whole story. It’s just the opening chapter. Our celebrations can only be complete if they embrace what that baby went on to do in his life, why he did it and what it means for us.

A birth in humble, even marginalised circumstances. Early boyhood as a refugee. A roller-coaster 3-year ministry featuring radical new teaching, mind-blowing miracles, compelling stories and the careful nurturing and role-modelling of his closest followers. Culminating in the ultimate self-sacrifice. Willingly following a path from adulation and superstardom to betrayal, torture and execution in the course of a single week. Followed by a miraculous, hope-inspiring and life-instilling resurrection. A triumph of light and life over darkness and death that gives the promise of eternal hope to us all.

As the song says: ‘Man shall live forever more because of Christmas Day’. That’s why we celebrate Christmas.

Jesus is who, what and why we celebrate. The real story, the full story, begins with a manger and a birth, and ends with the cross and a resurrection. Without the cradle, there can be no cross.

Yet recent research reveals that 40% of people do not even realise that Jesus was a real person who actually lived.

For without Christmas there can be no Easter; and without Easter there is no point in Christmas: we need to protect and project their Christian foundations.

Which is why this poster, ‘The Passion of the Christmas’, features a stark, even shocking, image of the scourged Christ carrying not a cross but a Christmas tree, with the simple message: ‘Remember why’.