God so loved the world...that He gave us Christmas

Jesus is the reason for the season. Yes, that statement is absolutely true. In the middle of all the business of the Christmas season, it’s so important to keep reminding ourselves that Jesus is what it’s all about. Family is important. Generosity is important. Loving one another is absolutely important. But even in the middle of all of that really great, important stuff stands The One who is the Most Important of all. 

Jesus.

The Christ.

The Messiah.

I understand why we Christians have our mantras like Keep Christ in Christmas and Jesus is the reason for the season. But I think even these catchphrases fail to really capture the depth of what Christmas is all about. They’re good reminders that Christmas isn’t about the commercialism that the world throws at us, or even the good deeds that we focus so much more intently on during the Christmas season than we do the rest of the year. But they skim along the surface of the truth of Christmas without plunging the depths of what God did in and through the Advent.

Do you realize that of all the things God created, it was only to humankind that he gave his very own breath? Only we were created to be like him. Only we were created to walk with him in the garden in the cool of the morning. Oh, we are so loved and so privileged among all the creatures of the earth! 

And yet, we chose something other than him. We chose – and continue to choose – ourselves. And from that first moment when humanity chose to explore the less-than instead of trusting God’s best, God put in motion his plan to bring us back into perfect relationship with himself. That plan came into fullness when he gave himself to walk among us in flesh. 

God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, stepped out of the throne room of heaven and into the brokenness of earth. 

No other god has done that. No other god would dare subject himself to that sort of humility. 

But ours did. And he did it in order to repair the brokenness that we caused. 

God did this great thing because he loves those whom he created. He loves us with a kind of love that I’m not convinced we can fully understand in our broken human condition. It is a love so deep that even living and dying as a human fully rejected by the world was not too high a price to pay to bring us back to himself. 

Friends, it is my prayer this Christmas that you will spend some time soaking in the truth of Jesus. I pray you will let yourself be overwhelmed by the love and goodness that God poured out for you in the giving of himself. I pray that the depth of love that God has for you will be an anchor for your life in the year and years ahead. 

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ~ John 3:16