The afterglow — and aftermath — of Christmas …

You might be exhausted this morning, but you’re probably smiling!

Christmas has come, and now is gone, but even with the hectic part of it, it was amazing! Just like the singer, Andy Williams, used to sing, Christmas really is “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” …

It’s the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you be of good cheer
It’s the most wonderful time of the year

It’s the hap-happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It’s the hap-happiest season of all …

Your Christmas experience, like so many others, is likely one where the children have never been more joyful, the spouse never happier, the in-laws never so polite … it’s just such a great time of love and peace. All you want to do right now is just bask in the afterglow of such a fine experience.

I think that first Christmas had remnants of the same feelings and experience. We see some of the characters involved in the first Christmas trying to soak in the afterglow of a miraculous day.

I think it’s likely that first Christmas wasn’t so silent or still as we imagine it to be! First, the armies of heaven loudly herald the birth of Christ to some lowly shepherds, who then high-step it into Bethlehem in search of the newborn Messiah.

The newborn Messiah!

Who knows how many townspeople they awoke in their chaotic search for this baby, but they found him …

“When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’ They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger,” Luke 2:15-16.

It was exactly like the angels had said! They were so moved with joy and awe that the shepherds, like the angels, just couldn’t keep this great news to themselves …

“After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished,” Luke 2:17-18.

The only thing this sentence in scripture tells us is that the people were “astonished” at the good news the shepherds told. It could be that the people were so hard-hearted and spiritually cold that they took their astonishment back to bed with them and thought no more of it.

But I doubt it. That’s just not human nature. At the very least, it’s more likely many of the people were as curious as they shepherds and they, also, probably went in search of the Messiah born in their little town that day.

It could also be when people found Him, they may have thought this is no place for a baby to be, and perhaps they upgraded the digs this little family found themselves in. If not, it wouldn’t be unrealistic to think some of the townsfolk brought some things to at least make this couple and newborn a little more comfortable where they were.

But as shepherds and Bethlehemites made their visits to the Child, we read in verse 19, “but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often” — she basked in the afterglow of Christmas.

So did the shepherds!

“The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them,” Luke 2:20.

But after the afterglow came the aftermath.

When dignitaries, complete with massive entourage, show up asking about a newborn king, the current king — Herod — would have a different experience regarding the Christ Child. He would also seek out the baby, not to worship Him, but to kill Him …

“After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,’ the angel said. ‘Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’ That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘I called my Son out of Egypt.’” Matthew 2:13-15.

The enemy hates it when Christ is worshiped. He hates it when God is glorified. He hates it when we’re focusing on expressing love and are at peace with each other.

Satan hates Christmas!

So he burst the afterglow of that first Christmas with an aftermath of murder …

“Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A cry was heard in Ramah — weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead,'” Matthew 2:16-18.

You can bet the same enemy will go to great lengths to squash the afterglow of Christmas in your life as well. He may not go to such extremes, but he’ll begin to try to stir in you more impatience, less tolerance, more selfishness, and before you know it, sin will creep its way back into your life if you’re not vigilant to the schemes of the enemy.

It’s God’s desire that we “live Christmas” — that worshiping Jesus Christ, praising and glorifying God, and loving and being at peace with one another — would be the way we live every day, every season of the year. But the enemy wants to replace such an afterglow of Christmas with some kind of evil aftermath.

Don’t let him!

It need not be that way!

It won’t be that way — regardless of life’s changing circumstances — if you begin every day surrendered to the One who entered our world as a baby 2,000 years ago. Start each day in awe and admiration of the One who would go from stable to the Cross for us; the One born with a mission to die to save us from our sins.

Start your day surrendered to the Messiah, start your day in the afterglow of Christmas, and you’ll always be able to overcome any aftermath.

Scotty