Read Genesis 1-2:3, Genesis 3 and John 3:16.
If you ask your friends and families why they celebrate Christmas, you will get varying answers ranging from, “It’s a time to celebrate family” to “Santa Claus” to “Jesus’ birth.” But I want to ask a different question: Why do we need Christmas?
If you know the creation story, you know that God created a perfect place and gave mankind the unique opportunity to tend to it. Man was deeply loved and blessed. Our Creator only asked for love and obedience in return. Pretty simple, right? Yet, in absolute disobedience to God’s command, Adam and Eve ate of the fruit and that willful, sinful act created an awful dilemma for you and me: our relationship with God was broken.
But man was still deeply loved by God. In the wisdom of God Almighty and in the face of the willful disobedience of two humans in the garden, God provided a way for us to have a new beginning and a second chance.
His name is Jesus. He is God’s one and only Son, born of a virgin, who lived a perfect life and died a perfect death on our behalf so that we could be called children of God. The essence of the Christmas story is that the dilemma was so great for mankind that we could not solve our own problem. There was nothing we could do to reach the God of heaven. So the God of heaven came down to us.
Jesus came from heaven to earth. He left the comforts of heaven and invaded the crisis here in our world. And He did not do it as a warrior dressed for battle but as a humble servant—as a baby, born of a virgin and laid in a water trough in a barn.
He is much more than a baby in a manger. As He conquered death, rose again, and now sits at the right hand of the Father, He did so as our Messiah. If He was not born, He could not die. If He did not die, the penalty for man’s sinful disobedience could not have been paid.
So why do we need Christmas? We need Christ’s birth to make a way for us to be right with God. The wood of the manger rubs up against the wood of the cross. The baby becomes our crucified Savior.
Don’t just believe in the birth, but also relish in the payment He made for us at the cross. May we make much of Jesus and live in eager anticipation of His return.
Father, we come to You with a deep adoration for what you did for us through Christ. Thank you for sacrificing Your Son on our behalf. Amen.