Merry Christmas

Wow, Christmas is over and it's time to start taking down the tree and putting away all the decorations. Wait, Christmas isn't over. . .

You see Christmas isn't about the gifts or the decorations. Christmas is much deeper than any of those things. It is the celebration of a birthday, the birthday of Jesus. The story of Joseph and the virgin Mary and the baby Jesus and the Shepherds and the Magi and Herod is one familiar to us all. But it even goes deeper than that. The amazing thing is this: It's more than a story of a baby. It is the story of how the eternal God became a baby! An event that is unique in history, so significant in fact that we shape our calendar by it - - B.C. and A.D. All of history up to the point of Jesus' birth was in anticipation of the event. From the time man fell into sin and ruined paradise, the promise has awaited fulfillment. The promise was first made to Adam and Eve, it was later given to Abraham, and to David. Jesus was the fulfillment of Israel's long hopes. Some may ask "Why would the eternal God become a man?" The answer: To be the deliverer, our deliverer from sin. God's justice requires that sin be punished. The punishment required is death. Left to ourselves we must die (physically and spiritually and eternally). There is no way we are able to save our selves from sin. Hence, the need of a Savior (one willing to dies in our place). Yet he had to be sinless and undeserving of death. Only God is sinless and he cannot die! That is, unless he became one of us. And that is the rest of the story. In Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago God became man to die on the cross for men in punishment for their sins. He became our Savior (Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. - Romans 5:18) . He promised to save and that first Christmas was the carrying out of that promise.

I don't mind the traditions of Christmas, in fact I enjoy them and look forward to them every year. But my thoughts are centralized around these things. Christmas is the greatest love story ever told. It is a story of the greatest love ever given. And it is the story of the greatest Gift - - the Lord Jesus Christ, my Savior. It's my hope that if you have not received the Greatest Gift that you will open your heart to receive that gift. Merry Christmas!