This week I was watching my favorite television show, NCIS. It was their Christmas show where they use a normal plotline to convey a seasonal message of peace and goodwill toward men. While watching this episode, it finally dawned on me what it is that people really want for Christmas.

Jethro, the lead character in the series, a former Marine with a no-nonsense approach, received a visit from his father. The older man came to visit and really only wanted to connect with his son after many years of estrangement. He felt the only solution was to sit and talk with his son. I can relate to that, as can many of you.

Another plotline in the show, a Christmas "wish," was that of a young boy who only wanted to talk to his mother who was stationed on a Navy ship in the Indian Ocean. Theirs was a relationship broken by the tragedy of war.

What is it that people sincerely seek in the Christmas season? What do they truly want from all the celebration, shopping and gatherings? Is it a celebration of Christ's birth and worship of God for sending His Son?

What humans want, what you and I desperately desire, is healing for broken relationships. What they get is often anything but the healing. The spending, the form of worship and all the celebrations fail to deliver this most basic of human needs.

Every year at this time the crisis hotlines are flooded with calls from people who are depressed and reach out for someone to listen to them and provide help. I have had calls from and counseled people at this time of year who get lonely. They mix regret and sadness with alcohol and make things even worse. They seek a connection to something that will fill the void of their life.

Christmas comes wrapped in a pagan myth that has been sanitized with modern concepts of Christianity. But such a holiday founded upon untruths cannot heal what is broken in people's lives. What is broken is the connection of love—love for God and love for fellow man. Our relationships are broken. These need healing by love, mercy and forgiveness.

Christmas is many things in this modern world, and many things it is not. Most people realize Christmas was not the day nor the season when Christ was born. Many are appalled at the crass commercialism of the holiday that detracts and hides the true biblical meaning of Christ's birth and His physical life. But one thing Christmas is—it is a time when many sincere people attempt to connect to family, friends and acquaintances at a deep and intimate level.

The Bible calls this grace and peace. Grace comes from God and creates a bond between us that nothing else can achieve. It is expressed in our love toward God and toward one another. It begins when we worship the true God in spirit and in truth. The bittersweet nostalgia and the often painful emotions brought forth in the Christmas season are but a symptom of the broken relationships with which so many struggle.

Christ said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30, New International Version).

Rest for our souls—that's what people really want for Christmas. They are looking for the right thing but in the wrong place. Christ—who is the only true source of peace of mind, heart and soul—is not in Christmas. He never has been and never will be. No matter how hard you try, you cannot put Him there.

Jesus Christ is revealed in the Holy Days He sanctioned and kept while alive on this earth. You can learn more about them from our online booklet Holidays or Holy Days: Does It Matter Which Days We Observe? Start reading now and begin fulfilling the deepest wish of all.

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