The gifts hung on Christmas trees are usually presents from one person to another—often not only from parents to children, but from teachers to scholars, and from friend to friend. Now, until Christ was born, there were no Christmas presents. There was no Christmas day celebrated. But the reason we give presents on Christmas day is to remind each other of God's Great Gift to man, the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Redeemer and Saviour. With Jesus Christ, God also gave us grace and truth, reconciliation, and pardon and peace and salvation. Man had sinned against God; was living in open rebellion against God. Whatever was good, man hated. He loved to do wickedly. He preferred to serve Satan, rather than to serve God. And Jesus came in order to reconcile men to God—to get them to turn away from sin, wickedness and Satan, and to accept of God's love and pardon and everlasting salvation, and to do that which was right and good and holy.
If you could travel through the countries where they do not know of Christ and do not worship Him, and then travel through Christian countries, where Jesus is loved and honored, you would soon see what a great difference there is between the two. We have railroads, steamboats, and telegraphs, and telephones, and phonographs, and every kind of cloth, and silk, and furs with which to clothe ourselves for greatest comfort, and when we sit down at our tables there is no good thing that is produced in any nation under the sun, that is not available even to those of limited means.
In the heathen countries it is not so. They are still riding in carts drawn by oxen. Without clothing and without comforts, the people in Africa are still groping through the bushes and jungles. And if you go to India and China and Japan you will find that only in so far as they have been brought under the influence of the religion of Jesus Christ, do they have even now the material blessings which come with the Gospel.
But there are other blessings which come to us with the preaching of the Gospel. In heathen countries they have no asylums to care for the orphans, no hospitals for the sick and the distressed and the dying; no institutions of charity and of mercy; but few schools, and these only for the rich and the upper classes. So you see that these things are among the gifts which God has given us with His Son Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate on Christmas day.
Then there are also the spiritual blessings and gifts. God's grace, communion with God, and the joy and satisfaction we have in our hearts in knowing that we are the children of God; that Jesus Christ has redeemed us from sin and death; that we are the heirs of everlasting life, and of everlasting glory. And the Bible promises us that in the world to come we shall enjoy everlasting blessedness, and happiness and joy—that we shall dwell forever with Jesus Christ; that we shall be made kings and queens unto our God. The Bible tells us, that it has not entered into the heart of man to think or to conceive of the things which God has in store for those who love Him. If we were to laden this tree with all the richest treasures of the world they could not adequately suggest the great blessings which God has in store for you and for me.
How fitting, then, that we should be glad and joyous on Christmas day!—that you and I should receive not simply these material gifts, but that we should also accept of Jesus Christ in our hearts and receive His spiritual blessings; and so be adopted into the family of God, and be permitted to dwell for ever in His presence on high. May God always bless you in your Christmas joy, and may you be glad not only because you receive the gifts of your parents and friends, but also because God gives to us all, His Only Begotten and Well Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Redeemer and Friend.
Questions.—What event does Christmas Day commemorate? About what time of the year are the days shortest and the nights longest? What does the darkness of the long nights represent? Was the world in moral darkness when Christ came? Is He the world's Redeemer? What trees are green in the winter? Whom does the evergreen tree represent? Why? Where did the custom of having Christmas trees probably originate? What do the things on the Christmas tree represent? Did people give Christmas presents before Christ came? What do our gifts to one another represent? With His Son, has God given us other things which we are to enjoy? Where do people enjoy the greatest material comforts and blessings, in Christian or heathen lands? In what lands are the largest spiritual blessings enjoyed?