In a time of commercialism, when people often feel the need to spend well beyond their reach, we find little reminder of what Christmas truly is. In the fashion of one of my favorite books of all time, Pilgrim’s Progress, I would like to tell the meaning of Christmas.

There is a King. He is not the sort of King who expands His kingdom for the sport of it. It is not a goal to be obtained to the detriment of those under Him. He does not suffer from hubris as the Kings we know in our history books. He does not marshal His subjects merely in order to expand His territorial boundaries at the expense of His subjects. He truly loves them. In fact, His kingship is defined by it. The King is good.

His subjects lived in His wonderful land.  They were invited to have relationship with this King.  The subjects were not made sport of, nor were they derided in order to make the King higher.  When His subjects lacked bread, this King did not say in regal ignorance, “then let them eat cake.”  Yet He did not simply give them bread.  He marshaled His subjects to give bread to others.  They were charged to bring in the abundance to give to those in need.  So deep was this King’s love, that He tasked His people to give to those were not His people.  Foreigners who did not know this King surely would know when they were helped and even served by His subjects.  The King is good.

But all is not well in the King’s domain.  The King had directed His people not to go where they ought not to go.  There was a danger in the land.  Far from the King was a miry swamp called Sin.  The mud in this swamp acted as if concrete, refusing to give up those who entered.  His subjects found themselves in this swamp.  They were unable to get out.  The swamp of Sin was hungry.  It devoured the people with an unquenchable hunger.  So dire was the plight of the King’s subjects, that even the children were born into this swamp.  But the King is good.

The King issued forth proclamations telling anew the dangers of the swamp.  But these proclamations did not have the power to save the people.  Furthermore, the people did not even listen to the proclamations.  They asserted that they could indeed save themselves from the bondage of the swamp of Sin.  They did not listen to their King.  Instead, they boasted that they were not like those outside of the King’s domain.  They could see the foreigners were likewise in this swamp.  They held the nations in contempt.  They refused to believe they were in the same swamp of Sin as the rest of the world.  The King told the people of their need and of their impotence.  There was nothing the people could do.  They no longer wished to help the foreigners.  Instead they scorned them while ignoring their own dreadful situation.  But the King is good.

The King no longer issued decrees informing the people of what to do.  The people were deaf to such decrees.  The King allowed the people to stay in their swamp of Sin.  Each attempt to pull themselves out only pulled them in deeper.  The King looked upon His people and had compassion.  The King is good.

The King left His regal palace, the place to where He called His people.  He set out to the swamp itself.  Clad in the most royal of vestments, the King stood at the edge of the muck.  He saw His people crying out.  He saw His people languishing in the mud they chose to enter, the mud they were born into.  The King in His pristine white garments, purple robe, and shining crown, leaped into the dank swamp.  He entered into the inescapable swamp in order to pull out His people, both from His own land as well as from the foreign nations. 

He is a good King.