You may have heard the name Henrik Ibsen. He was a prolific Norwegian playwright. One of his many plays is Emperor and Galilean. Written in 1873, the play depicts the life of Julian, who ruled the Roman Empire from 361-363 AD. A previous emperor had made Christianity the official religion, but Julian was trying to reverse that and reestablish the old worship of the Greek and Roman gods. Ibsen’s 8-hour play (which is most likely why none of us have ever seen it) tracks emperor Julian’s degeneration from a young Christian to a pagan Caesar.  In the play, Ibsen has Julian say, “Have you looked at these Christians closely?…They brood their lives away; unspurred by ambition; the sun shines for them but they do not see it; the earth offers them its fullness, but they desire it not; all their desire is to renounce and suffer, that they may come to die” (Quoted I, English in William Barclay, In the Hands of God. New York: Harper & Row, 1966, p. 66).

This description of sour and joyless Christians by Mr. Ibsen is similar to what we hear today. Critics of the Christian church frequently point to our lack of joy. Millennials charge Christians with being quick to judge, always ready to tell people what they are doing wrong. One woman described her pastor as being “so solemn he looks like he just stepped out a Nyquil commercial.” It is unfortunate that to some, even as we prepare to celebrate Christmas, we Christians may look more like Ebenezer Scrooge than an angel with “good news of great joy.” One pastor’s eight year-old son once asked him on the way to church on Christmas Eve, “Dad, are you going to let us enjoy Christmas this year or are you going to try to explain it all again?” Wow!

It is true that all of us have a right to be miserable. We have a problem with sin. We see it all around us. We see people making bad choices and bad decisions. We see people doing things that destroy families and relationships. We see children starving and Christians suffering persecution. Evil thrives in our world. Families disintegrate. The world is falling apart. Sin has become normal and accepted by our society. We see our own sins, ever before us, like a dirty mirror that has us looking worse every day! If Christians don’t lament all this darkness, who will? If we won’t carry the world’s heavy burden of sin, who will?

What we are about to celebrate reminds us that someone else already carried that burden. When you feel burdened by sin, remember the message of the Christmas angel. Exceeding your desire to carry the burden of sin yourselves is the great news that Jesus came to do it for you. He has taken sin seriously. He has carried the full consequences of your sin, dying in your place. When you look and act as if you bear the sins of the world, you cheapen His sacrifice and tarnish His victory.

As we are in the last days of preparing our hearts to celebrate the birth of our Savior, remember the Joy that he came to bring, a joy that should be in all of our hearts, a certainty that we are the redeemed, forgiven and dearly loved children of our heavenly Father.