Isaiah 9:6

New International Version

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.

For Meditation

Christmas bells are ringing. Shops have emptied their shelves and are stocking up with colorful decorative Christmas goods. Shoppers are doing their accounts to see how much they can afford to bring home for the season. Decorations have started in homes, shops, offices, and lobbies. From Black Friday and heading towards Christmas, advertisers are cashing in on the mad rush for profit by commercial houses as Wall Street looks forward to a bull market to close out the year. But is that what Christmas is all about?

Is Christmas about The Manger Child born in Bethlehem or about profit-making? Is any of the gifts people will give to one another the real deal, or is it about the best Gift ever from heaven to the world? Do people even stop to tell the Christmas Story anymore?

Unfortunately, churches have diminished the Christmas celebration over the controversy over its actual date and origin. The devil is such a clever deceiver! We claim Easter as the most important date on the Christian calendar—and I will never diminish the Cross of Calvary for a fraction of a second. It is where my eternal healing took place. However, I have a problem when we downplay everything that took place before Calvary as of secondary importance.

Many Christians do not even consider what it took for Christ to become a fetus in the womb of a young woman to be born to save us (Phil. 2:6-8). Think about it—that the Almighty God would leave His throne in heaven and condescend to our wretched level to save us. Dig even deeper. Imagine what it took for Christ to empty Himself of all His prerogatives as God, to be conceived as a human baby by the Holy Spirit in a virgin womb. Think about God as a baby in a human womb for nine months, just as we were. It is unimaginable! It blows my mind!

Consider His condescension, the hypostatic union of the divine with humanity without confusion or admixture. Then, see Him lying in a manger in a stinking sheep pen. Maybe you can now see that Christmas is not just an ordinary occasion filled with commercial activities and the giving of gifts. It is the celebration of the day which brought us the Redeemer, without which Calvary would be an ordinary mountain like any other in my village and yours. There would be no cross without God taking on human flesh.

Christmas is the beginning of the actualization of God’s redemption plan for us sinners. It is a story that rises from the womb of Mary to a crescendo at Calvary. It finds its climax in a garden with an empty tomb.

That, my friend, is why Christmas is worth celebrating with joy for the glory of God Christ Jesus. Amen!