Christmas. What does Christmas mean to you? For most its a fun, busy time that we all look forward to every year. It's a time that's centered around family, gift giving, food, holiday lights and trees. But in all the hustle and bustle and celebration, do we really take the time to ponder what Christmas is really all about? The birth of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, Yeshua Hamashiach (meaning:Jesus is Lord-in Hebrew).
Think of it, when Adam and Eve sinned against God, he could have wiped them, and the Devil out, right then and there. But God's great love for mankind, as well as his great mercy and justice didn't allow him to do so. He didn't create any of us to be robots, but he gave mankind and all of those in the heavenly realm free will. The ability to decide to obey or disobey God. So when Adam and Eve chose to disobey, that set us all on a course separated from God and eventual death, because we would all inherit that sin and imperfection from our first parents. Imagine it to having a perfect brand new bread pan. You bake a loaf of bread and it comes out perfectly. Every time you make a loaf of bread you admire how perfect the loaf of bread is that comes out of that pan. Until one day you drop the pan and put a big dent in it. Every time you bake bread in that pan from then on, it has a dent or imperfection on every loaf. So too our first human parents were created as perfect beings. When they chose to sin, they were no longer perfect and every person born from them, would inherit that imperfection. There was no way man could ever fix it on their own, as that one act of disobedience set us on the path to destruction. Genesis 3:17-19 tells of the curse that their disobedience brought upon the them and the earth. (Interesting side note, that in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, God tells of the curse that is put on the earth when Adam and Eve sinned, and in Revelation, the very last book of the bible the curse is lifted. Revelation 22:3 says, "No longer will there be any curse...").
So what did God do? His unfailing love moved Him to come up with a plan...a Savior for mankind. This plan would reconcile us back to Him. A true rescue mission. He knew that since Adam had been created perfect, he needed to balance out the scale with another perfect human. But since Adam and Eve sinned, all their children would inherit sin, therefore in order to save mankind, he had to send us a redeemer.
The Bible doesn't tell us, but just imagine for a moment what the conversation between the Father and the Son may have been like when they watched Adam and Eve willfully sin against God. Imagine the Father talking to the Son about how they would need a redeemer, and what needed to be done. God chose his one and only Son for the mission. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." They both knew that Christ Jesus had to come to earth to die in order to save us. They knew that he wasn't going to come to earth and just live out his life to a ripe old age and peacefully pass away in his sleep. No, they knew he was going to come to earth and was going to die a horrendous, and torturous death. Now think about the incredible love that, that took on the part of God to give his only begotten Son for mere mankind. How many of us would give our only child for someone else? I'm sure its safe to say not many. Now think about the Son's great love for the Father and the willingness to do his will, as well as His great love for mankind. Five times in John 10:11-18 we are told about Jesus willingly giving of Himself for the salvation of sinners. In John 10:11, Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for his sheep." In verse 17 he says, " The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life-only to take it up again." Verse 18, Jesus says, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." Romans 5: 6-11 says, " You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."
We know from the scriptures that the Father and the Son made man in their image, out of the dust of the ground. Genesis 1:26, "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image...." Now imagine the great love and incredible humility it must have taken on the part of the Son, to not only be willing to come to earth on this mission to become a mere human...a creation that he created with the Father...to go from God to flesh...as John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word (the Son-Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Think of it....he was implanted in Mary's womb. He appeared in the smallest most vulnerable human state there is. A tiny embryo. He could have just appeared as a grown man, but he didn't. Think of the very moment the Son left heaven, no longer there. Doesn't it make you wonder what the heavenly hosts must have been thinking? It showed everyone watching in heaven and on earth, just how much mankind meant to God. Can you even imagine the incredible amount of self control it must have taken for God to watch his Son be tortured and to be crucified on the cross? We know that our actions can hurt God's heart. The events that lead up to the flood that God brought upon the earth is a good example. Genesis 6:5-6, "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth and his heart was deeply troubled." So imagine how God must have felt. The pain his heart must have felt watching his only begotten Son go through what he did. Doesn't that just deepen your appreciation and love for our heavenly Father? He loved us, he loved YOU that much!! That pretty incredible!!
Think of the power it took to transfer the Son of God into a man, and carefully place him into Mary's womb. What a honor for her, to be chosen to be the Jesus's mother...to have found favor with God.- Luke 1:26-28 Imagine having an angel appear to you and tell you that you were going to miraculously become pregnant by God, and that you were going to give birth to his Son! Luke 1:35 says, "And the Angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of The Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy-the Son of God."
Imagine what Joseph must have gone through, at first thinking Mary hadn't been faithful to him when he found out she was pregnant, and they hadn't yet been together intimately. It was only until a angel appeared to him and told him that she was conceived by Holy Spirit, that he understood the miracle that had taken place. Matthew 1:18-23 says, "This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save people from their sins." All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophets: "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means God with us)".
Every detail about Christ Jesus appearance was foretold. Some scholars believe there's over 300 prophecies about Jesus from his birth to his life and to his death. The very first one right there in the garden of Eden, right after Adam and Eve sinned where the Devil was told by God, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."-Genesis 3:15. This was approximately 4,000 years before Christ Jesus even appeared on earth as a human. Jesus, and only Jesus, fulfilled all the prophecies about the coming Messiah. In a recent sermon, Pastor Gary Hamrick at Cornerstone Chapel stated some fascinating facts, "its mathematically impossible for all the old testament prophecies spoken hundreds of years before Christ, to just accidentally be fulfilled by one person. The odds that one person would even just fulfill just 8 of the 300 prophecies about the Messiah, are 1 in 100 quadrillion! That's the odds! Statistically speaking you have better odds of being struck by a satellite that fell from outer space, which is about 1 in 21 trillion. But the fact that Jesus just filled 8 out of the 300 plus prophecies, its 1 in 100 quadrillion! Dr. Peter Stoner who was chairman of the Science Division at Westmont College, also the Chairman of the Departments of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College, before he died in 1980, wrote a book called Science Speaks. And mathematically he talked about how it is completely mathematically impossible in order for anyone other than Jesus to be the Messiah, based on how he fulfilled all of these ancient prophecies. This is what doctor Stoner wrote in his book, Science Speaks, "Any man who rejects Christ as the Son of God, is rejecting a fact proved perhaps more absolutely than any other fact in the world."
What an incredible miracle it must have been when Mary gave birth to the Son of God!! When the heavens were opened to the shepherds, when an Angel first appeared to them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).
Here is the trailer to the movie The Nativity, your family would love it!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiSfup00uZY&ab_channel=MovieclipsClassicTrailers
You can hear the sermon I referenced here, I highly recommend it...it's so good! Pastor Gary Hamrick-Cornerstone Chapel:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq4EY7Tblm4&ab_channel=CornerstoneChapel-Leesburg%2CVA
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