Christmas Is Contagious Series

Celestine Sibley tells of her father saying to her mother one grayish December morning,

"the lumber business is going badly. It looks like a poor Christmas this year." She cried

out, "A poor Christmas-shame on you! There is no such thing as a poor Christmas! Times

can be hard and people poor but Christmas stands by itself as glorious and unmatched by

anything else in history."

Here was a woman who had an enthusiasm for Christmas for she saw it as a celebration of

good news that all the bad news in the world could not alter. A poor Christmas was a

contradiction in terms. You might just as well speak of a poor ocean, a poor moon, a poor

sun, or a poor galaxy. There are some things you just can't diminish, and Christmas is one

of them.

Christmas is a celebration of a glorious event that all the powers of hell cannot make not

to have been. It is to late for a poor Christmas to ever be. The spirit of Christmas has

spread around the world. Ever since that night the angels infected the shepherds with this

spirit, it has been contagious. We usually connect the word contagious with disease and the

spreading of germs from one person to another. But if you look the word up in the

dictionary you discover it applies to positive things too. Enthusiasm can be contagious, and

praise can be contagious. The communication of any influence to the mind or heart can

become contagious.

This is what we see happening on the first Christmas. Visitors from another world

brought something into earth's atmosphere. It is a good thing angels came before the age of

science. Scientist worry about alien contamination. When moon rocks were brought back to

earth they were worried they could contain some organism that could spread diseases for

which we had no cure. They kept these rocks isolated until they were thoroughly checked

out. They wanted no alien germs on our planet.

Can you imagine what they would have expected these Christmas angels to go through if

they put rocks through such restrictions. They would have insisted that they stay in some

sort of angelic delousing chamber before they were permitted to communicate with men.

The risks would be enormous that these beings could spread something that would radically

alter the human race. The fact is, they did just that. These angels were contagious with the

good news of great joy. This spirit broke through the barrier between heaven and earth and

infected the shepherds. They were instantly cured of their fear, and filled with enthusiasm to

see the announced child in Bethlehem. Verse 17 says, "When they had seen Him, they

spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child." What they had was

contagious, and they began to spread it to everyone with whom they had contact.

Before the first Christmas day had ended the world had an epidemic on its hands, for the

Christmas spirit was contagious. It was spread by mouth from one person to another. If

you were a carrier you could give it to a lot of people very quickly.

Satan and many of his mad scientists have tried to prevent the spread of this contagious

spirit. They have labored hard to find a cure, but to no avail. The Christmas contagion has

leaped all boundaries and spread into all the world. A single carrier of the Christmas spirit

can infect unlimited numbers of people.

The guidepost, some years back, told the story of an American family in France. The

parents and three sons were having a perfectly awful time. There car broke down, their

hotel was a dump, and they had to walk in the rain to a drab little joint for dinner. The wife

ordered a meal in French and got something she didn't want. The husband called her stupid

and their attitudes matched the negative atmosphere. A French couple at the next table were

not exactly helping. The father slapped one of his children and started him crying. A

German couple on the other side were obviously arguing even though they could not

understand a word they were saying.

The only happy person in the place was an American sailor who sat by himself writing a

letter. An old French flower woman came in and tried to sell flowers at each table, but no

one was in the mood for flowers. She sat down and ordered a bowl of soup. "Can you

imagine," she said to the waiter, "I haven't sold a flower all day so it's soup for me on

Christmas Eve." They all sat there in heavy silence, never dreaming that there was a

contagious spirit about to invade their lives.

The American sailor finished his meal and walked over to the flower woman. He said,