Incarnation Thoughts At Christmas

Today’s celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ offers Christians a unique opportunity to bring a laser focus upon the significance of Christ’s birth.

While some maintain that the Bible does not command Christians to celebrate the birth of Christ, there is wisdom in contemplating the wonder and joy of Christ’s birth and the theological significance of God’s becoming man, the incarnation.

Many are quick to dismiss theological reflection as too complex or challenging.

You may have heard about the schoolteacher who asked his students how they spent their Christmas breaks. One little girl answered, “We visited my grandmother in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.”

Her teacher said, “That sounds like an excellent vocabulary word! Can you tell the class how to spell Punxsutawney?”

After a brief pause, the little girl replied: “Come to think of it, we went to Ohio.”

I love that little girl’s clever response! While I appreciate her avoiding the discipline of spelling, Christians should always welcome the opportunity to think deeply about the person of Christ and how His deity and humanity are inextricably united.

Such reflection results in our worshiping Christ more meaningfully.

Many Old Testament prophecies foretell the first coming of the Messiah, a Hebrew term for “Anointed One.” In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the word is translated as “Christ.”

Many were looking forward to the coming of this Christ.

When King Herod asked the religious leaders of his day where Christ was to be born, they told him the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem and cited Micah 5:2 (Matt. 2:1-6).

Micah is an Old Testament book completed some 700 years before Christ; yet, remarkably, Micah foretells the specific location of the birth of Christ.

He writes in Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”

This remarkable verse captures the season’s essence: a “little town of Bethlehem” is the place from which a special ruler will come, and not just any ruler, but a ruler “whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”

Here is a clear reference to the eternal nature of the son of God, reminding us that the coming Savior had already existed, having been with the heavenly Father “from everlasting.”

Two thousand years ago, this eternal Son of God took on flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Becoming man meant that He could live a perfect life for us and die a substitutionary death for our sins (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Moreover, Christ would rise on the third day so that all who believed in Him might be justified or “declared righteous” and no longer guilty of sin (Romans 4:25).

This is why Christians love to worship Christ, not just at this time but throughout the year.

Jesus is not only “the reason for the season,” He is the reason for every season, every month, every day, and every second.

He is the reason for everything.

O, come, let us adore Him!