I realize that his post is late… I realize Christmas was a month ago, but I hope you will forgive me and realize that, even a month later than the recognized day to “celebrate,” the truth of Christmas is always with us. Interestingly enough, that is what this post is all about. Enjoy…
Advent is upon us. It started snowing a lot last week where I am. I also know it is Christmas because the parking lot at the mall is full, which is kind of sad. Nothing like celebrating Christ’s birth with consumerism.
I want to draw you attention to an old post that that I wrote almost a year ago called The Unity of the Bible. I was prompted to write about this because of a sermon I heard from Allistair Begg (great guy by the way). The premise of the sermon is that the whole Bible is about Jesus. The Old Testament is about the coming of Jesus, the Gospels are about what He did, Acts is about the explosion of Christianity right after his ascension into Heaven, the epistles is about the impact of the Gospel on our lives, and Revelation is about His Second Coming.
Today I want to take a piece of that and expand it for you in light of the Christmas season. Plainly, Christmas IS the Gospel. The story of Christmas tells and shows the Gospel in an important way. Granted, the Cross is not part of the Christmas story, but the Cross is irrelevant without the Bethlehem stable. Ultimately, the empty grave is what gives us hope. As Paul said in I Corinthians 15, “12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” If Jesus had not risen from the grave, we would have no reason to believe that we could be risen with him, out of sinfulness and into adoption as His child. But the empty grave doesn’t happen without the Cross, which doesn’t happen without the manger.
Jesus came in the form of a baby, the most innocent and helpless of all creatures. He left the splendor of heaven for the confines of a dirty pig trough. No doctor, no midwife, no nurse, just Mary, Joseph, and a few farm animals. Splendor for simplicity. Glory for darkness. Heaven for earth. Does that sound familiar? Does it sound like the condition He finds our hearts in when He calls us to salvation? He saves us, having His shed blood cover our sinfulness – not just the lust in our hearts, the greed of our eyes, the malice in our minds, and the dishonesty that digs itself into every crevice of our lives – He covers our state. Our state is sinfulness. Our state is helpless, hopeless, and dire. We are lost without Him. We are hell-bound (literally) without Him. And yet He covers it all. Paid in full. The debt is taken care of. Not written off, as a bank would write off a loan that an individual defaulted on, but paid for, as in the bank President writing a check out of his personal account to fulfill the obligation. None of that happens without the manger. The manger is pointless if there isn’t a sacrafice (Hebrews 9:22 – Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”). And wthout an empty tomb, our hope of being rescued from eternal life separated from God stayed in the grave with a rotting corpse.
So the point is, enjoy Christmas. Enjoy the gifts that you receive from family and friends. Enjoy the smells (including the Yankee Candles thast smell so good). Enjoy the good food that Grandma makes. Enjoy Manheim Steamroller, Amy Grant, James Taylor, and all of the other music you like. But enjoy them in the larger context of what Christmas IS – the Gospel. All of these are gifts that you would not, have had HE not died Good news indeed. Merry Christmas, and may this new year bring you closer to Him.
