Can You “Imagine” There’s No Christmas?

30 years ago this month, Mark Chapman fired two gun shots into the back of John Lennon outside of his apartment building in Upper West Manhattan. There’s been a good bit of talk and remembrance lately as the world reflected on his death.

Lennon, of course, was one of the Beatles…and in his early days he wrote songs like “Love, love me do” and “I want to hold your hand.” As he got older, though, his songs became a bit more serious. One such song that he wrote comes to my mind…with lyrics like these:

“Imagine there’s no Heaven. It’s easy if you try

No hell below us, Above us only sky

Imagine all the people, Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries, It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too….”

His lyrics were certainly popular (still are, in fact), but not terribly profound. Lennon believed that the world could become better and better and better until it was perfect. He believed in Utopia. So it’s kind of ironic, I suppose, that someone in the world that’s actually getting worse and worse and worse shot and killed him.

Lennon’s lyrics might have been catchy, but Jesus has never been wowed and wooed by them. Jesus spoke of heaven as a real place that He was preparing for his followers. Jesus warned of a real hell for those who choose to live and die without him.

But Jesus was born as a Babe in Bethlehem…He was called “Immanuel” which means “God with us.” God came down to us at Christmas to offer a relationship, not a religion. And whether we know it or not, we need God desperately!

Can you “imagine” there’s no Christmas?

God can’t! I can’t! And I don’t want to.

He has changed my life in dramatic ways and I don’t ever want to go back to that person that I used to be. I may not be who I ought to be (yet), but thank God I’m not who I used to be either! And I owe everything to Jesus!

*Special thanks to my friend Ron Hale for the essence of this blog post...