Every year at this time, I'm repeatedly amazed at the degree to which Christmas has become an unstoppable cultural phenomenon, particularly in the United States.  

Think about all the forms of Christmas within our culture today: St. Nicholas from history became the Santa Claus in malls, greeting children and delivering presents.  Hollywood has given us ideas with incredibly diverse perspectives on Christmas: Home Alone, The Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, Elf, Christmas Vacation, Polar Express, It's a Wonderful Life, A Charlie Brown Christmas... not to mention the never-ending Hallmark Channel movie collection.  Christmas decorations and sales arrive earlier and earlier each year, along with Christmas music from every conceivable genre.  Christmas is everywhere, but it's so diluted that we are in real danger of letting its true importance pass us by.

Despite all the noise surrounding Christmas in America, there is still nothing quite like soaking in the authentic, historic account of the reason Christmas is celebrated at all: the birth of Jesus Christ.  For believers and non-believers alike, there is a gentle, consistent pull back to the familiar accounts from Matthew and Luke, the familiar carols of old, and the familiar walk through the Advent season to prepare for Jesus' arrival.  Culture changes, but God's word never does.

This week, we will continue in our Advent series of messages entitled A Messy Christmas with one simple goal: to be reminded of the actual events of the first Christmas.  The events of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 are often presented as peaceful and idyllic; they were anything but.  Join us as we see just how messy Jesus' arrival was, and be encouraged to see past our cultural clutter to the original culture that Jesus came into.  Let's find the true meaning of Christmas in our Bibles rather than our T.V's this year.