The Cost of Christmas

The Cost of Christmas isn’t that hard to calculate.  All you need is a couple bankers to add up the price tags!

On the First Day of Christmas

For more than 40 years the US bank PNC Wealth Management has put a price tag on Christmas. To purchase each of the days gifts for your true love the cost around $51,000. That’s quadruple the cost of Christmas back in 1984! There are some people who dispute this figure claiming that it is much too small. You see if you actually follow the 12 days of Christmas, beginning on December 26th running through Epiphany on January 6 there are a few more gifts. There are 364 items if you sing out the whole six-minute song. For that entire gift for your true love the current cost skyrockets to just over $218,543.

I like this illustration because it reminds us that the Christmas season of the church year is longer than just December 25th. And if you really stretched out those 364 gifts, that would get you almost to Christmas again, wouldn’t it?

Lay Bare The Holy Arm

If you were here on Christmas Eve you noticed that there was far more expense to our God at Christmas than just a baby in a manger, wasn’t there. I don’t want you to calculate the cost of angels, and that custom built star in the East or providing for wise men to travel cross-country. I want you to ponder with me this morning verse 10. What does Isaiah mean when he says, 10 The LORD will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.  First off what does it mean if you’re going to roll up your sleeves?  God is getting down to business. The business of saving the world. It’s more than that. This is a picture of me, well one arm, at the gym yesterday.

That’s not that surprising to many of you. What does God look like when he’s going to take off his shirt? All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. Does it look like an army of angels? Does it look like a hurricane? You can see those easily from outer space. Does it look like this?  On Christmas day we remember not just when God too his shirt off, but when he took on a human chest, and arms and legs. The word of God made flesh.

Want to hear more?  Watch this week’s message taken from Isaiah 52, The Cost of Christmas.