Without its backdrop the Christmas story is emptied of its true purpose and power. A story of love, divine intervention, and good news, without the why. A story without a story. A story with no context. A story in danger of being dismissed for lack of relevance.
First, the backdrop, takes us back, beyond the beginning, to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Eternal. Holy. Happy. Love – the “happy land of the Trinity.” Hallelujah!
Secondly, out of the fulness of that loving, holy, happy, triune fellowship, God decided to create the heavens and the earth. Vast. Staggering. Intricate. Balanced. Beautiful. An environment and purpose unlike no other.
Third, God created humanity, man and woman, in his own image, as the pinnacle of his creation, for fellowship with himself, and placed them in Eden, to steward what he had created.
And everything was good, even very good. The fellowship with God. The relationship men and women enjoyed. Life. The planet. No sin, no suffering, no conflict, no war, no disease, no death…
But, then sin entered the world through Adam and Eve’s disobedience, along with its consequences: separation from God, conflict in relationship, and a cursed earth. Suddenly things took a turn for the worse, hard work, suffering, conflict, dying… The
The consequences were so bad it was beyond humanity to rectify it. No matter how hard mankind tried, we were too far gone. No amount of right instruction, of law, could change people’s hearts, Satan, and sin, had ensnared and enslaved humanity to the core. Cut off from God, humanities condition spiralled beyond recognition. The image was marred. Sin and death reigned.
But, and what a ‘but’ this is! God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had planned the most amazing rescue package. Right from the start he promised that one day there would be a saviour. And to that end he called Abraham, his family, then Israel. And through different ones at different times he reiterated his promise and expanded upon it, providing various details about the One who would come, where he would be born, the life he would live and the death he would die.
Then at the right time, it happened, God came in the form of earthly flesh, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin. Very God. Very Man. The Rescuer. The Deliverer. The Saviour. The one who would save people from their sin.
Oh, what a day that first Christmas was. No other day like it in all of human history. No wonder the angels sang and the shepherd’s rejoiced. No wonder the magi from distant lands made a long pilgrimage carrying gold, frankincense, and myrrh. No wondered Mary treasured all these things in her heart.
Oh the joy of that day. Joy, yes. The promised One, the Savior was born! “Glory to God in the highest!” Suddenly, the foreboding darkness of humanities sin – your sin and mine (remember, this is our story), and it’s consequences, receded into the background as the light and colour of that first Christmas day shone brightly over Bethlehem’s hills. A light that continues to shine around the globe whenever and wherever the story is told.
Here is love so staggering it will take a lifetime and more to comprehend it. The height, the length, the breadth, the depth. Such love. Such mercy. Such grace.
This Christmas take a look at the big story, the back story, the whole story, and see and rejoice in what God has done in Christ!
Do you know Him?
Happy Christmas!
Richard Burgess
The Word 4 Life 