Here you are, you’ve picked up the church page expecting to read something about Christmas. I’m not going to disappoint you, but maybe I’ll surprise you a little.

A couple weeks ago, my wife and I bought a jigsaw puzzle. The box said it had a thousand pieces in large lettering, but in the small print, it said there were 1027 pieces. That’s a lot of pieces (especially when you drop them). Now, we had bought this particular puzzle because of the picture of the front of the box (Snoopy and Charlie Brown) and I quickly came to be very appreciative of that box cover. The reason was because when any picture is reduced to 1027 little parts, if you pick them up one at a time, it’s next to impossible to tell where they go or what part they play in the whole.

You’re probably thinking, “But, Sam, it was a Snoopy puzzle! How hard can that be? Black for Snoopy’s ears, yellow for Charlie Brown’s shirt, red for the doghouse, etc.” The problem with that theory is that this picture was one of those “photo-mosaic” things so within our puzzle of 1027 pieces there were something like 3000 individual, teeny-tiny, little pictures! So I’d pick up a little puzzle piece and (with the magnifying glass) I could see that I was holding a picture of Charlie Brown pitching, as well as one of Snoopy dancing and a couple partial pictures that could have been anything from the whole Peanuts gang skating to what might have been a ’57 Pontiac—it was really hard to tell at that size!

I bring this up because sometimes we zero in on the baby in the manger and forget to back up and see the really big picture. Those of us who would like to tell people that “Jesus is the reason for the season” would do well to look at that big picture and tell the story from that perspective.
Have you ever thought that the story of Christmas is a story about freedom? Who doesn’t like freedom? (Dictators, that’s who!) We all like freedom, but we don’t feel like we have it because we’re enslaved to so many things (our own vices, our credit card company, our mortgage payment, et. al.).

Philip Yancey wrote, “I pray that the church, in increasingly oppressive times, will remember that words have their greatest impact when they enhance freedom, when they liberate.”

2 Corinthians 3:17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (English Standard Version)

Christmas is about freedom. It’s about a little baby, sure, but we wouldn’t remember that little baby 2000+ years later if he hadn’t gone on to do something really impressive. As amazing as the gifts given to the baby were (high-dollar spices and pure gold), the gift the baby brought is even more impressive: freedom.

According to the Apostle Paul (in Ephesians 2:3), “In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God's anger.” In other words, left to ourselves, we are helpless before God. Helpless. Slaves to our sinful selves.

But then in comes this baby, the Son of God! He brings a gift with him. That gift is freedom from God’s wrath paid for by the baby’s (sinless) life, death and resurrection.

What, then, do we do with that freedom?

John Barbour answered this question back in 1375 by saying, “Freedom all solace to man gives; He lives at ease that freely lives.” That’s pretty, but the Apostle Peter said it much more clearly when he wrote: Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. (1 Peter 2:16 ESV)

How many times have I heard this verse preached? And why does it seem like the emphasis has always been on the last half of the verse? What about that first part, though: live as people who are free.

What is more free-ing than grace?!? What greater gift could ever be given than the chance to live free? Free from the fear of our own sinful nature. Free to live for God.

Free to wish someone a Merry Christmas and if they ask me what’s merry about it, the freedom to tell them about the joyous source of my joy—and my freedom!