The reason that the church marks the days of the birth and the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ with services of equal devotion is that each of them is a salutary medicine for us, because he was born so that we might be born again, and he died that we might live forever. ( St. Augustine , sermon 314)

Three weeks ago the Christmas catalogs began to arrive in my mailbox as a “salutary “announcement” that the holiday season has arrived. None of the catalogs made mention of the Author of Christmas, but the signal was sent to start now to embellish the celebration by spending as much as possible.

Nevertheless, in spite of the secularization of the holidays, Christmas and Easter remain essentially religious for Christians. Sometimes a speaker can be heard to say that Christmas would be meaningless without Easter; but then I remember the “salutary medicine” of St. Augustine, and I know that God doesn’t do meaningless things at any time in His relationships with His people, or at any other time. His medicine is always healing, always renewing.

On no other occasion in the Bible did God empty His heaven of angels to celebrate anything in the history of His people, except at the birth of His son. It was a huge salutary medicine applied to an obscure group of shepherds that changed their lives, and over two thousand years later continues to change ours. At Christmas God put on human flesh and entered our fallen world, making a permanent change in the lives of believers. The enormity of this event is cloaked in simplicity, humility, and obedience. It is shaped by God in the measure of His attachment to His people, and the readiness in the souls of Joseph and Mary to identify themselves with the God of the Old Testament.

One day in early spring my eight year old grandson asked me, “Mimi, have you ever had a Christmas feeling when it wasn’t even Christmas?” “Yes,”I answered, I have had such a feeling.” “Because I’m having one right now,” said Isaac. We were sitting on our patio watching some birds.

The salutary medicine of Christmas really does extend throughout the year. It can’t be compared to Easter, because they are both participants in the wholeness of God, the medicine we all need.

Love in Him,

Prue