Like all little boys, I loved Christmas. Then I became a teenager and learned the truth about Santa Claus (well, it was a little before that). Somehow the fun was taken out of it. Christmas lost its mysticism for me then.
Not that my parents didn’t make the effort to teach the real meaning of Christmas in the process. My mother made a custom advent calendar with Bible verses to read each day. For a few years, my parents kept up this tradition. It did have the effect of ingraining the whole Christmas story in me.
Now most Christmas services at church are boring to me. I know the story. I get the message. I feel as though I’ve been de-sensitized to Christmas. I don’t know, maybe I’m just not much of a Christmas person.
I get that God sent his Son, His Word, to Earth in order to redeem man. He didn’t conquer the Earth and remove Satan from his rule, he merely started a rebellion. He left us with a charge to spread the good news that we are all redeemed before God. No longer would there be a need for complex rituals that involve the blood and guts of animals. Instead, our hearts, our very desires, would be judged, something that only God can truly do.
Christmas is a time when we remember how it all started. It started with the birth of the perfect child from a virgin girl. The child was an example of what man could be without sin for He was without sin Himself. The fact that He survived is a miracle in and of itself. After all, the dragon did try to slay the child, just as it was retold in Revelations (see the woman and the dragon).
They named the child “Jesus” which was Greek. In Hebrew, it was “Joshua” and it means “Savior”. It was appropriate to name the Son of God such a name. He came and showed every one just how far removed from the Law as written by Moses we really were (see the Sermon on the Mount) and he showed us the way to redemption.
As the saying goes, it was a very strange way to save the world. God has not granted me the wisdom to truly understand the sheer magnitude of what happened. I doubt He has granted anyone with enough wisdom to truly fathom what Jesus did, other than what is obvious to most of us. He came to us as a child, which raises so many practical questions, and lived a life without sin.
He came a child, at great risk, and somehow started something that changed the course of humanity. Do you honestly believe that things would be as they are today if Jesus was not who he said he was? If he wasn’t who he said he was, he would not have died, unless he was a madman. But then his followers claimed he was raised from the dead and many of them died for such claims. There had to have been at least one sane person in that group to deny it.
And so it goes on to this day. On Christmas we remember His sacrifice, not just in death, but in His birth. We remember that it was the start of something that radically altered the course of humanity.
I guess it is not so boring after all. It is confusing, frightening, and awesome. But I guess when looked at through the entirety of humanity (well, as much as you can anyway), it definitely not boring.
Come Lord Jesus.
And Merry Christmas to you all.