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CHRISTIANS MAKE A DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS LIST #4

FIVE MINUTES WITH DIANA

And soon the day will be here!  Merry Christmas, everyone!  You know, the years keep rolling around, and we come to this very special 15 minutes together.  I don’t want to give you the wrong idea, and let you think Ken and I will crawl out from under our own Christmas trees with the ribbons and the bows, and came down to our studios on Christmas Day itself; this program is being recorded a few weeks ahead of time.  But even as we speak, we’re sensing the wonder and the joy of Christmas Day 2000, and the Melashenkos and the Richards and all of us want to join hands right here and wish each of you all of God’s greatest blessings for the year 2000.  We thank heaven for each and every one of you.

I’ve been told that this particular week of radio messages is actually beaming far beyond our usual network of stations across the United States and Canada.  In fact, that’s one reason we’re recording these five programs a bit earlier than usual, so that our friends at Adventist World Radio, near Newbold College, outside London, England, can arrange to have these programs air literally all around the globe.  So that’s an exciting thought, and it gives added meaning to our greetings, in the words of that great old carol by Isaac Watts: “Joy to the World, the Lord is come.”

You know, with my own calendar reading late October as I share with you today, you’ll understand that we’re still kind of flooded with wistful thoughts regarding that Princess Diana funeral we all watched not too long ago.  And of course, we have to wonder what kind of Christmas it is for her two sons: William and Harry.  Let’s certainly pray for them today; don’t you agree?  But here’s the question I’d like to pose right now.

What if you could have had a few minutes with Diana on that last Saturday night?  Just five minutes with her before she and her friend Dodi Fayed and the bodyguard got into that doomed Mercedes Benz?  Now, you know — ahead of time — that the Princess has just a few minutes of life left.  You know what the Sunday headlines are going to be all around the world.  You know that the most watched funeral in human history is a week away.  But you’re not permitted to say any of that to Princess Diana.  No, you can’t touch that topic; you can’t warn her.  You have the five minutes to share anything on your heart . . . anything but that.

Or let me put it this way.  You have those last God-given moments to share a gift with her.  There won’t be a Christmas 2000 for Diana; you already know that.  And so you want to give her a gift on that final Saturday night.  Something special.  Something that will be a happy memory for what you know will be the last precious moments.  What would that Christmas gift be?

Those are two hard questions, aren’t they?  What final message?  What last gift?  For a person who seems to have everything, who’s finally fallen in love again.  Diana has the entire royal purse at her disposal; yachts and expensive vacations and unimaginable shopping excursions are hers with a snap of the fingers.  She has it all.  And you have just five minutes, just one package to give her.  What will it be?

Before we try to answer that question together, maybe we could readjust our priorities another way.  Maybe you were one of the millions around the globe who, before August 30, were a bit envious of the princess.  Her good looks, her fame and fortune.  People paid attention to her; seemingly by the luck of the draw, she was plucked out of relative obscurity to become a future queen. 

And her two sons William and Harry: “what lucky kids,” many children must have thought . . . before August 30.  These two boys were instant multimillionaires the moment they were born.  We all saw those pictures of ski trips, of expensive outings around the world.  Meeting models like Cindy Crawford and the great headline athletes, the superstars.  And teenyboppers everywhere looked on with envy . . . until August 30. 

But a car crash changes things, doesn’t it?  Today you and I are alive, and Diana isn’t.  Many of us still have our mothers, and Prince William and Prince Harry do not.  What a different perspective we all hold here on Christmas Day.

And that perspective so much colors the answer we’d give to Princess Diana on that fateful Saturday night.  What could you give her that would be of any worth?  We’ve made a title statement all this week: Christians Make a Different Christmas List.  What would we give her, what would we say to her, in those last five minutes?

You know, if I just had that brief window of opportunity, and couldn’t warn her about the danger lying ahead in that Paris tunnel, I think I could just say one thing to the princess.  “Diana, God loves you.  He really does.  Despite the confusion of your life, despite the ups and downs, the frantic chases as you try to get away from the camera lenses, the cyclical mood swings, the eating disorders, and all the rest, the restless search for fulfillment . . . there’s a God who loves you.  There’s a Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for the poor and also for the princess.”

I don’t know what the spiritual state of Princess Diana might have been on that Saturday night.  How did she stand with God?  Had she really and truly accepted Jesus Christ as her own personal Savior?  Prime Minister Tony Blair read in his eulogy about Christian love, that heavenly ideal as described in First Corinthians 13.  Had she experienced that kind of spiritual love?  I don’t know the answers to those questions, and they’re not any of my business or yours.  A loving God knows, and a loving God always does the right thing. 

But if I had had those five minutes, I wouldn’t have talked about the weather or the clamoring news hounds outside that Paris Ritz Hotel.  And I wouldn’t have tried to match the other gifts Diana has gotten used to; after all, Dodi Fayed, only hours earlier, had just ordered a $205,000 diamond ring from Repossi Jewelers for the new love of his life.  But you know, I actually could have matched that gift and even surpassed it, as a man named Peter once did in the Bible.

A lame man was begging by the temple one day when Peter and John came by.  And you know, he was hoping to get a coin from them, maybe even a couple of pennies.  In terms of a Christmas list, he didn’t have very high aspirations.  And then Peter said to him: “I don’t have any pennies.  No silver, no gold.  Sorry.”  But then he added this: “But what I do have, I’ll give you.  In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.” 

And because he could give this man Jesus — the ever-present power of Jesus — this crippled beggar jumped to his feet and walked into the temple.  The point being, of course, that he got the better gift.  The MUCH better gift: Jesus Christ and the power that comes with His name!

And  on Christmas Day 2000, you and I have in our possession that greater gift.  We have Jesus, the great, unsurpassed Gift to our world at Christmastime.  Not silver, not gold, not diamond rings.  But we have Jesus.

You know, Princess Diana traveled in the circles of the rich and famous, as I mentioned.  And if we wanted to name-drop with her in those final few moments, I guess you and I could list  — just for interest’s sake — some of the “Christmas babies” in society today.  All of the famous people we know about who have December 25 as their birthday.  Humphrey Bogart.  Isaac Newton.  Big football stars like Larry Csonka; baseball hero Rickey Henderson.  A villain like Nicolae Ceausescu.  And we could name-drop some pop heroes: Barbara Mandrell, rock-and-roller (and former preacher) Little Richard.  Annie Lennox from the Eurythmics.  Movie actress Sissy Spacek.  The legendary nurse, Clara Barton.  And we could go on and on.

But I say again, we’ve just got those five minutes with Princess Diana.  Five minutes before she gets into that Mercedes.  Do you know?  I’m not going to mention those other Christmas names.  I’m just going to mention the one: Jesus Christ.  That’s right.  Jesus Christ, the Savior of this world.  The Christ Child who came down to rescue all of us, the ragged and the royal.  The worn-out and the woebegone, as well as the wise as the wealthy.  That’s the only gift any of us could have shared that might have possibly made a difference at the end: a word spoken about Jesus Christ.

It IS too late to say those words to our departed English rose, Diana, Princess of Wales.  But it’s not too late for your neighbor, your relative, your child, your friend . . . your enemy.  It may be that right this very moment, people are opening up the gifts you mailed them.  But did you remember to give them Jesus?  Did you find a way of sharing your best Gift with someone who desperately needs that news?

You know, that horrible date, August 30, came and went.  It’s gone now, along with the sweetheart of the British Empire.  And maybe as Christmas Day slides into the past, as the sun sets across the snow-covered fields outside your living room window, you turn off your radio and you say, “Well, Lonnie, that was nice, but it’s too late. Christmas is over.”  Friend, the season for giving Jesus is never over.  It’s never too late.  Tomorrow is just as good a day for that as today.  And next week and next year and right on through until we see that Gift with our own eyes.  When it comes to sharing Jesus, it’s always Christmas.  Today and every day.

So Merry Christmas, everyone.  For giving this greatest of Gifts, may it always be Christmas Day.