Yesterday evening, I watched It's a Wonderful Life and cried my eyes out at the end. Today, we had dear friends over and opened our stockings and put our star on top of the Christmas tree. Tomorrow, we're going to put off opening gifts until Monday so that we can focus on preparing ourselves for worship. Then, after church, we're going to visit my grandmothers and have a delicious dinner with family. I love Christmas for all these things and more (even as I sit here watching It's a Wonderful Life for a second time). But I'm surprised at how warped the message of Christmas has become to the world.
We hear it again and again--"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son...." But just stop right there. He gave His only Son. How did He do that? Jesus Christ became a man--a human being, like you, like me, a human being who faced temptation, pain, sorrow, fear and death. He should never have had to stoop to that measure--to become what He had created. But He did--He did it willingly. Why?
Well. There's me. And you. And others, too. Even though we had fallen from His favor and deserved only His displeasure, God had a plan for our salvation. We couldn't save ourselves, however hard we might try. He had to save us. And so that's exactly what happened on the first Christmas night about two thousand years ago. God became man. He was born of a virgin, born under the law. He became sin for us. In the end, He faced God's wrath so that we would not have to. And this is where it all began. It didn't begin with a fanfare of trumpets up and down the crowded streets of Bethlehem; it began with a choir of angels who were sent to shepherds, alone with their flocks on the outskirts of the town. It didn't begin in a palace or even a house; it began in a cave, in the presence of animals. And when the baby Jesus had finally entered His world, the only bed availible was a hastily prepared manger, much the the displeasure of several cows and sheep, I should think. He wasn't noticed that night; and when He was noticed later in life, it was only to be despised and rejected by men.
And yet He still came. Even to face ridicule, death, and the wrath of God the Father for the sins of the world.
That, my friends, is why we have Christmas today, 2,000 years later. Even after two thousand years, we are still trying to understand it.
And, frankly, I don't know if we ever will.
Merry Christmas, everyone. God Bless you tonight, tomorrow and in the coming year.
2 comments:
Christmass for me has always been like one of those presents that seem huge: it's handed you, and you open it, and there's another box. It continues. Each box opens another box.
As the boxes get smaller, you realise with a sinking heart, that the present is actually very small. Then you open the last box, and there is a diamond, glistening like starlight in your palm.
Sometimes the smallest presents are the best ones :3 In this case, I know it was =D
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