Christmas. For many it is a magical time of year. Feelings of nostalgia grip all that we do. Beautiful decorations, Christmas carols, a fire crackling in the fire place, and family and friends gathered. Delicious foods, family memories, and Hallmark movies. Norman Rockwell paintings flash through our minds as we work so hard to recreate the wonder of Christmas for our children and grandchildren. But instead of creating the picture perfect Christmas, we wind up working ourselves to the bone. We arrive at the end of the season exhausted, with hopes that are disappointed, and yes, maybe even a tiny bit cranky!
The truth of the Christmas season is that the wonder of Christmas isn’t found in all of these things that we focus so much of our time and energy. The wonder of Christmas isn’t in nostalgic moments. It isn’t in the beautiful decorations, the twinkling lights or the ambiance of perfect family moments. As wonderful as all those things are, the wonder of Christmas is that God Himself has come to us. In the flesh. He Himself made His dwelling among us! This fact should completely shock us!
The Old Testament Scriptures are filled and overflowing with God’s promises to send someone to rescue His chosen people. He promises to crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15); He promises to redeem His people and blot out their transgressions and sins (Isaiah 44:21-22) ); He promises to atone for their sins (Ezekiel 16:62-63); He promises to set up a shepherd over his people to feed and care for them (Ezekiel 34); He promises to send a prophet that would be greater even than Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15); He promises to send them a King that would rule in righteousness and justice and whose kingdom will have no end (Jeremiah 23:5-6 & Isaiah 9:6-7). On and on the promises go until we turn the page between our Old and New Testaments to read of the birth of a baby boy named Yeshua who will save His people from their sins. We read that He will be called Immanuel, which means God with us. The wonder of Christmas is that God Himself is the fulfillment of all of His promises. God didn’t just create a perfect human person to fulfill his promises. He could have done that. He could have formed someone like He had formed Adam who would be His agent to save us. But this is not what our God has done. No, the wonder of Christmas is that He came Himself. The eternal Son of God, the Great I AM, Yahweh, took on human flesh and made his dwelling among us. The Creator of heaven and earth, the One who has held the universe in the palm of His hand, became a tiny embryo sheltered in the uterus of a young Jewish virgin girl!
Every promise from God is fulfilled in the person of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, Immanuel, God with us. He has come into our world, taken on our flesh, experienced the pain of the human experience in a sin-cursed fallen world. And He has done all this that we might know personally, intimately, the true wonder of Christmas - the God who saves, redeems, rescues, shepherds and brings His people into a reconciled relationship with their Creator.
Jesus...the true wonder of Christmas. My prayer is that this Christmas and throughout the year, you will never lose your wonder of the God who came to seek and to save you!
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