The Meaning of Christmas
With it being the week of Christmas, it is only fitting that this blog entry is about Jesus’s birth. Whether you think/believe it is the actual date of Christ’s birth or not, is irrelevant; the meaning of Christmas still stands. The point of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, who would go on to make the ultimate act of love by saving us all--if we should choose to accept Him.
The Christmas story is so much more than just a month out of the year where we give presents, hang up lights, sing the same songs that we sang last year, and everything else we do during this season. The story of Christ and His birth shook the very foundations of the world through love, and it is that love that Christmas is about. How God has given us the greatest gift we could ever receive, and that we are entirely undeserving of it.
1) Immanuel: God with us
We see the beginning of the story of Jesus and His birth mainly at the start of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Both illustrate the Christmas story that so many of us know: that Mary gave birth to Jesus in the stable, that the wise men found Him and worshipped Him, King Herod searching for Jesus to kill Him but failing, and all the other amazing parts of Christ's Nativity.
The importance of this event, however, is more fully realized in the beginning of John’s Gospel. John begins by illustrating who Christ is in essence: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:1-4). John is speaking of Jesus, and establishes that Christ has always been--since He was with God and is God--and therefore will always be. The deity of Christ is immediately established, and states that all things were made through Him, and nothing was made without Him. Clearly, these characteristics can be attributed to none other than God alone, and to make such a claim is either placing something that is not God at the level of God--which is blasphemy (*medieval voice)--or means John is trying to get us to understand that Jesus is God.
Once this is realized, the power of Christ