Powerpoint Pictures: Turkey for Sale; People carrying shopping bags; A pile of Christmas cards; Children decorating a Christmas tree; People carrying presents by the door of a house

What do people do each Christmas?  What are some of the things we need to do in order to get ready for Christmas? *[Order the turkey; Buy presents; Write Christmas cards; Decorate the tree and the house; Decide where you are going to spend it]*

There are a lots of things people do to get ready for Christmas.

Yet there’s some other things we should be doing (and I want us to be thinking about them on each of the Sundays in Advent).

We’re told what they are by the four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who wrote eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life.

The first thing we are to do at Christmas is Recognise.  That’s what Matthew tells us we need to do.  Recognise who Jesus is.  That He is the King who has come to save His people from their sins and bring them back into relationship with God.

Now, if Jesus is this King, we need to get ready to meet Him, because like the people at the time Jesus was on earth, one day we will when He comes again.  How do we get ready to meet Him?

Mark tells us.  He tells us how to get ready to meet Jesus.  And He says Repent.  That’s the second thing we are to do at Christmas.

Unlike Matthew, Mark doesn’t give an account of Jesus’ birth in his Gospel.  He begins with John the Baptist, who had a special job of getting people ready to meet Jesus.

“And so John came, baptising in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Mark 1:4)

John told people to getting ready to meet Jesus by repenting.  By acknowledging that they have sinned against God – that they had not lived as they should have and that they need Him to save them from their sins.

This Christmas, one of the most important things we can do is repent.

Repent of our sins.

That’s what we should do if we recognise that Jesus is the King who saves people from their sins.  Repent.  Admit that you need God to save you from your sins.  Let’s make sure we’ve done that.

*Next time we’ll hear what Luke says we should be doing this Christmas!*