Do you believe in Christmas? The miracle and power of Christmas?
Christmas was God’s idea, not man’s. Christmas is an exciting time of the year for Christians to celebrate and remember the first coming of the Lord Jesus as part of God’s ultimate plan of redemption for fallen humanity. But is there more to Christmas?
Many, if not most folks in the time of the Roman era of the first Christmas were depressed and had lost hope in their gods ability to stop the Roman advance and were looking for hope-any hope-of a better quality of life, something fulfilling and lasting.
God used the well-made roads of the Romans (good news spread quickly)-and the common trade language of the Greeks (almost universal so most could understand) to launch His plan (see Galatians 4:4-5). To people in derision of looking for this hope, it sometimes required human sacrifice. To them especially, it made sense how Christ would offer himself on a Roman cross as the ultimate and final sacrifice, going on to demonstrate His superiority over nature in rising from the grave.
To many the cross is offensive, the Roman process of crucifixion incredibly ugly-indescribable pain and humiliation. Why did this process have to happen? It’s my belief as people consider Christ’s work on the cross, we see only in part how repulsive sin is to a holy God.
His willingness to submit to the Father’s plan in my place while I was living in sin and an enemy of God (Romans 5:8-10) is incredibly humbling. And yet He did it! For any and all who will put their faith and hope in Him alone. He did it because of the “joy that was set before Him, enduring the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). Christ did it to personally guarantee our place, my place in His heavenly home.
Christmas is about the cross. As a songwriter stated, “It’s about the cross, it’s about my sin, it’s about how Jesus came to be born once so that we could be born again, it’s about the stone that was rolled away so that you and I could have real life someday, it’s about the cross”….
As we consider Christmas, let us also consider the cross and the price that Christ paid so that individually, we have direct, lasting, and fulfilling access to the Father.
-Keith Weaver
About the Author: Keith Weaver lives with his wife and 9 children near Middleburg, PA where they operate Weaver’s Archery. Keith serves as a deacon at Faith Christian Fellowship and also serves as a board member of Heralds of Hope.