If there’s something the Christmas story brings to the fore it is the fact that the world is a stage on which a drama is taking place. Suddenly in the midst of the politics, power, and brokenness of the world of that day something happens over which neither Caesar, nor his puppet king, Herod, nor the religious powers, or the man or woman in the street (or field) has any control.
An intervention has taken place…
God has intervened in human history, and not for the first time, but this time in the most dramatic and astounding of ways…. He Himself has stepped onto the stage!
Yes, God became flesh, incredible – I mean, it’s never been done before! No wonder the surprise, the shock of those caught up in the story – how can these things be?
They can! How? Because there is more to this world than naturalism and materialism – such a world is cold, empty and meaningless – there is more than meets the eye. It is also a spiritual and supernatural world.
It is not decorations, Christmas trees, or presents that make Christmas happy, it is God himself…
- That he is (there is Someone greater than ourselves)
- That he has not abandoned the world (wound it up and left it to go its own way)
- That he is not an absent God (Someone who stands back from it and won’t get his hands dirty or afraid to enter our pain)
- And that he has not left us to sort ourselves out (we can’t).
The secret to a happy Christmas is to focus not on ourselves but on the God who is, the One who in his love has broken into the mess of human history in Jesus to rescue and reconcile us to himself and one another.
That’s why it’s good news, it is the ‘good news of the glory of the happy God’ – it is his delight to love and redeem.
God who is love because he is Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), has acted in love to draw us back into the circle of true love, his love, for where there is no love there is no happiness.
Here’s to a very Happy Christmas to you!
The Word 4 Life 