Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Three weeks from today will be Christmas Eve! Will you be ready? Beginning yesterday we are walking together, very intentionally, these next 21 days toward Christmas! This year our Christmas journey is like walking across a stream without a bridge, stepping on rocks, balancing long enough on each rock to deeply reflect and carefully consider our next step.
Each day we’ll consider a Christmas question and if you have a question, you’d like us to consider please email it to me!
Yesterday we began with this question: “WHY Christmas”? And using Jeremiah 2 I suggested that CHRISTMAS is God’s response to the MESS humanity has made of the perfect creation God made in Genesis 1 when He created our universe, our planet and the human race.
Today, let’s consider this question: “WHAT is Christmas?” Now that may seem ridiculous to some of you, especially if you are a Christian and have celebrated a Christian Christmas for many years. But if you are among the other 7+ Billion people of our world it might be that you view Christmas very differently than how Almighty God views Christmas. For most people in our world ‘Christmas’ is a season of each year for generosity in gift giving and enjoyment of friends and family through parties and gatherings intended to bring encouragement and joy to those attending.
Most people will expend some effort and probably some finances, maybe significant finances, in bringing happiness to other people through Christmas cards and gifts or special gatherings or even travel to be together. For a great many people in our world Christmas has little if any spiritual value and HAPPINESS is the measurement of Christmas success, would you agree?
But the true answer to our question today “WHAT is Christmas” is told in the Biblical story found in Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 2:1-21. Christmas is the miraculous INCARNATION of GOD into our human race, as Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem! The prelude to this remarkable, miraculous event is found in Luke 1:5-80; and the very significant events immediately following the birth of the baby in Bethlehem are found in Matthew 2 and Luke 2:22-40.
“Incarnation” is not a word we use very often in normal, everyday conversation. The dictionary says incarnation is: “a person who embodies in the flesh a deity, spirit, or abstract quality.” The miracle of CHRISTMAS is the INCARNATION of GOD into our human race, which means God took on human flesh and lived among the human race here on planet earth!
The two accounts found in Matthew and Luke tell us this miracle of “INCARNATION” happened as the Holy Spirit of God impregnated a young Jewish virgin named Mary. Every pregnancy is a miracle but, in her case, there was no human man involved in Mary’s pregnancy, thus a miracle unlike any other! And therefore, this miracle child born to Mary was God in human flesh! He was given the name JESUS because Mary and her fiancé Joseph were both instructed by God, through an angel, to give her child that name!
When the angel visited Joseph, Mary’s fiancé, these words were God’s explanation and instructions to Joseph: “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus…” (Matt. 1:20,21)
Mary received the shocking news from the angel Gabriel, and he told her: “Mary, you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High…the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:30-32,35) Now my friends this miraculous conception, pregnancy and birth is the very centerpiece of Christmas! It is a miracle never before or since repeated. No other person has ever lived who can claim to be “God in human flesh”.
While every other religion or spirituality has had a leader, none other than Jesus Christ have ever claimed or been acclaimed to be God incarnate. Only Jesus and only the true Christianity built on Jesus Christ is God’s divine provision to humanity. Now I urge you to pause and ponder that, for it means every other religion or spiritual system is man made and man reliant and is NOT God’s provision for deliverance from the MESS of our world, which we discussed yesterday is the REASON for Christmas! You see my friends, as God watched our human race derail and spin out of control into the MESS of wickedness and self-destruction, it seems to me God had only three options:
First option: Destroy all that He has created wonderful and start all over.
Second option: Do nothing and allow all creation to self-destruct in our selfishness.
Third option: God Himself come INTO the MESS and bring God’s Hope, God’s Help, God’s Answers to any and all who would desire a relationship with God and a new life, rescued from the MESS both in this life and for all eternity!
Tomorrow we’ll discuss in more detail our third Christmas question: ‘WHO is the Jesus of Christmas’, but in closing today, let’s consider that this miracle of Incarnation is explained by John the disciple, a close friend of Jesus, in these words: “In the beginning was the Word, [Jesus Christ] and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He [Jesus Christ] was with God in the beginning…” (John 1:1,2) It means Jesus, God the Son, is fully God and He was there, in eternity past, at the beginning of all things, with God the Father, before anything that was created existed.
John continues: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only Son, who came from God the Father, full of grace and truth…” (John 1:14) John, and many other people, were eyewitnesses of this almost unexplainable miracle: the INCARNATION of God into human flesh!
John continues his explanation with these words: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of Life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us…” (1 John 1:1,2)
Naturally, both in the first century and in every generation since, the INCARNATION is a miracle most people disregard or outright reject as foolishness, but John the disciple wants us to know that he SAW God incarnate (Jesus) and TOUCHED HIM and walked the roads of Israel with HIM for 3 years and HEARD HIM speak and was an eyewitness to the miracles! Matthew, another of his disciples wants us to know this INCARNATION, hard to believe miracle, is why Jesus would be called “Immanuel”, which means God With Us! (Matt. 1:23)
So, our second Christmas question: “WHAT is Christmas?” calls you and me and EVERY person to make a decision, a choice. Is the miraculous INCARNATION of God into human flesh actually a historical fact or is it myth, foolishness?
What is your answer my friend? And by the way, your answer is the key to the type of life you will live here on earth during your lifetime and also the key to where you will spend eternity, and we’ll look more into that in our journey to Christmas!
For today, may I urge you to talk with God and declare to God either your confidence that the INCARNATION is true, or your doubts and your questions?
And here’s another great Christmas song to help us consider the INCARNATION of God… is it real and is it the WHAT of Christmas?
Today’s Scripture: John 1:1-14.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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