The Reason To Celebrate
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The Reason To CELEBRATE“The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet Him, shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!’” John 12:12-13 NIVIn order to fully appreciate just how amazing Christmas 1989 was for a Romanian, you would have had to cut your teeth in a country oppressed by forty-five years of communist indoctrination. You would have had to drink in atheist propaganda with your mother’s milk. And you would have had to learn to read under the ever present gaze of Nicolas Ceausescu, the dictatorial party leader whose picture hung in nearly every room in the land. To understand just how bright that December dawn was, you would have had to have spent decades in darkness. I had. And consequently I found December of 1989 beyond my dreams. Masses of people were parading through the streets shouting, “There is a God!” Prayers and songs of praise were being lifted up to the heavens. The gospel was being preached from the balconies of governmental buildings. To say it was spectacular is to discredit the moment. It was a miracle! And yet, eighteen years later I realize that it was a tragedy as well. I now understand that what I thought of as Christmas morning was really more like Palm Sunday. The crowds that gathered in the streets of Oradea resembled the crowds that celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem – but in all the wrong ways. They celebrated the wrong thing and consequently ended up turning their backs on the right thing. In John 12:12-13 we read of the great joy with which the first century Jews welcomed Jesus into their city. But in John 19:15 we find that the crowd that chanted, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!” changed their chorus to “Crucify Him!” just days later. How could things go so wrong so fast? Having lived through the Romanian revolution, I believe that both my people and the first century citizens of Jerusalem thought political solutions would solve their spiritual problems. But life just doesn’t work that way. Do not misunderstand me, politics is important. As someone who has suffered under a wicked regime I do not discount the importance of good government. But real and lasting joy will never follow an election victory, or even the overthrow of a tyrannical leader. Real and lasting joy comes only from fullness of life in Christ. Which forces us to ask some hard questions about our Advent celebrations. What is our focus in December? What is the true meaning behind Christmas? In his first letter, John explains that the gift that is greater than any ever placed under a tree is the gift of eternal life that comes to all who embrace Christ. “To those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband’s will, but born of God” (Jn. 1:12-13). And that is the message of Christmas morning – not Palm Sunday. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adrian O. Ban was born in Romania during Ceausescu’s rule, and came to faith in Christ thanks to his family’s witness. Involved in ministry from an early age, Adrian watched the church where he served – a church under heavy government oppression – undergo steady growth beginning in the ’70s and continuing today. A licensed engineer, Adrian left Romania in ’91 for Chicago, where he worked and received degrees from two Bible colleges. In 1998 he returned to serve the Lord in Romania.NOTE: This article is reprinted by permission from “Hope For A Despairing World,” CISF (Christian International Scholarship Foundation), Lake Forest, Illinois, 2003.