As many gather in churches this evening to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the reality is that many who come to worship know the Star Wars narrative more completely and fully than they do the story of Jesus.

The Star Wars narrative is totally fiction.

The story of Jesus has to do with eternal truth.

This is such a sad commentary for a couple of reasons. First, it’s sad that churches and Christians have managed to make the greatest love story, the greatest epic of good versus evil, the greatest story for the struggle over loved ones into a dull, meaningless, irrelevant fable. It’s also sad that the George Lucas’ of our world are doing a far better job of capturing the imaginations and the hearts of our generation than the church.

So friends, on this Christmas give day, for just a few minutes, please indulge this pastor guy the opportunity to set this right.

Remember. God loves you. God love you more than you could ever imagine.

But because of sin, shame separates us from God’s love. Shame makes it impossible for us to understand and comprehend God’s love for us. Sin causes us to pursue the very things that cause more harm, more death, more darkness.

So God sent Jesus to die for us. Jesus did this because God could not imagine an eternity without you in it.

But there’s a darkness that would love for us to remain blind to this love. There really is an evil that would love for us to remain in the dark.

The darkness loves it when we ignore, distrust, and push aside God’s love story as nothing other than mere fiction.

But Christmas is a reminder that “To all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God” (John 1:12).

God loves you. God could not imagine an eternity without you. So the Creator God became a creature in Bethlehem to live and die to rise again that all who believe and receive him might have life in his name. And that’s the God honest truth.

Merry Christmas!