“Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14
Truly this has been our need from the beginning. Immanuel…God with us. In our pain, in our sorrows, in our fears, in our grief, in our life and in our death, we need God with us. More than anything else in all of creation, we need Immanuel. This is exactly what the Father gave. Jesus Christ is the ultimate gift of all time and for all time (Romans 5).
When He came, He came gently. He could have come in lightning and thunder. He could have come in overwhelming, earth-shaking power with ultimate intimidation. Yet, He came in the humility and lowliness of human flesh. In the form of a man, He came weak and veiled. The title most commonly used by our Lord for Himself? “The Son of Man.” Here lies a lesson for all of us who can become overly impressed by high-ranking titles or proud degrees. More than that…here lies a lesson for us about the heart of God Himself. He was willing to come, willing to live in weakness, willing to be scorned by His own creation and willing to die at the hands of sinful men. Behold Immanuel…in our rebellion and sinfulness, in our lives, in our death, in our graves, and in our resurrections. Now the people of God can be with Him in ascension, in triumph, and in victory for all eternity.
No, we dare not gaze upon the soft, gentle scene of Bethlehem without also seeing the horrible, dark shadow of the Father’s wrath at Calvary, prophetically cast across this Babe in the manger. For this is why Jesus came into the world. To view the Babe in isolation and out of context is to miss the point of Christmas entirely. And yet, this is the unintentional (or perhaps intentional…Romans 1) goal of many. For to view Bethlehem in the context of Golgotha is to see our guilt, laid before us bare.
The birth of Jesus is largely irrelevant to us without His perfect substitutionary life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection that followed. Sound blasphemous? Not at all. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit… “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead…” 1st Corinthians 15:16-20.
Here we see the real meaning of Christmas in the context of the cross, and it has everything to do with our sin, our guilt, and the Hope that has been given to us for the forgiveness of these sins through reconciliation with God. Christ lived the perfect life on behalf of the elect and died a perfect atoning death for His own people. “Hark, the herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn King! Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.’”
- Pastor Craig