What is the Meaning of Christmas?

I have come to believe Jesus was and is the great example not the great exception. He was the embodiment of Christ Consciousness. What is Christ Consciousness? It is the Divine Spark within us, our Divine intuition and connection to the highest part of our self. When one embodies Christ Consciousness there is no separation between God and self.

As a Christian website tries to determine the answer to the question of the “meaning of Christmas,” I am struck by the following passage and what it brought up in me.

“Perhaps for an answer (to what is the meaning of Christmas), we need to return to the biblical narratives…At the heart of the nativity narratives in both Matthew and Luke, is a simple fact: amid the struggle of a people who had longed for 500 years for God to act in the world in new ways, God came to be with them in a way that totally identified himself with them, as human beings. Amid the most unlikely of circumstances, to the most unlikely of people, God became a human being to reconcile all peoples to himself (2 Cor 5:18-19).”

So, here we are over 2000 years later still longing for God “…to act in the world in new ways.” I am witnessing amongst everyone I meet an intense longing for spirituality as a way of life not just a Sunday affair. I am witnessing an intense desire to express the true, creative self.

If as in the passage above, (change “him” to ‘her’ or ‘it’ if you want) “God came to be with them in a way that totally identified himself with them as human beings…” This message is as clear now as it has ever been? If we are still looking for an outside God or Sky God, a God that no one has yet seen, but only felt, could it be God is within us, expressing as us.

What is the meaning of Christmas then? Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, reminding us that we, too, are being awakened to the birth of Christ Consciousness within us. This is what I believe. “Oh, come, oh, come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” Emmanuel means “God is with us.” Need I say anything else?