Submitted by Andy McIlvain.
We must not forget Christmas is about celebrating the Incarnation of God, Jesus fully God and fully man. Before he was born, the Ancient of Days thought about being born. The form God chose to enter and experience his creation was an infant that grew and matured and was born in the same way as you and I. Somehow God’s infinite power was contained within a fragile infant.
The creator and sustainer of all life came with a plan to die and he planned to die for our sins. The sins of humanity began in the Garden of Eden and ultimately included every human. Each of us mentally and physically, knowingly and unknowingly commits many sins daily. Each sin is a sin not only against the people and world around us, but against God. The doctrine of sin in Scripture is, therefore, very complex. It is not just a matter of accounting. Therefore, it includes very complicated temporal, situational, and spiritual realities that only God himself can ultimately sort out.
Sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, and their rebellion established a connection between moral depravity and physical deterioration. We may attempt to deny or ignore our sinful hearts, yet we will experience its witness in the debility of our body as we age in the coming year.
Gods ways are not our ways, and he shows up when and where we least expect him. This was true of Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection and is true in our lives today.
Christ is not concerned about our expectations or comforts in the coming year. Being a good parent and all-knowing Father, he works to bring us into what we need. He is concerned about your inward groaning: your sinful stumbling, persistent weaknesses, perplexing questions, and parenting quandaries that you are not wise enough to think your way through. He is concerned about your neighbor with cancer, the struggling single mom down the street, the person in your workplace that is depressed and does not have the hope of Christ.
For Christ, Christmas is about salvation; it’s not about expectations, but about the process of becoming Christ-like. Christmas is about love in all its many expressions. When Jesus came, he “did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).”
And this is the way he comes to you this Christmas: to love you in the ways you most need.