Christmas: The Presence of God

People are incurable.  They will worship something, even if it is themselves.  But people will not naturally worship the true God, the God of the Bible.  They will instead seek after an entirely different God or form the God of Scripture to their own liking.

 

But God is not interested in the so-called well-meaning efforts of people seeking to worship something.  He calls people to worship Him as He has ordained and fear Him only.  So Christmas is much more than a celebration of human ideas loosely attached to some historical event that happened about 2000 years ago.  Christmas is the celebration of the incarnation of the one and only transcendent God in the person of His Son the second person of the Godhead.  Christmas is “God with us.”  A young Jewish virgin labored and gave birth to God the Son.  God came to birth.

 

“God, who at different times and in various manners has spoken in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us in His Son; whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom He made the world; Who being the brightness of His glory, and the exact representation of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sin, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:1-3)

 

This is why Christmas is special.  This is why we say “Merry Christmas!”  We give gifts because He has given so much to us.  And we give not because any of us is deserving, but because we know the God of grace who has revealed Himself to us in His Son Christ Jesus.

 

The joy of Christmas is the joy of knowing the one true and living God who reveals Himself in the person of His Son.

 

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!


Let earth receive her King;


Let every heart prepare Him room,


And Heaven and nature sing.

 

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!


Let men their songs employ;


While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains


Repeat the sounding joy.

 

No more let sins and sorrows grow,


Nor thorns infest the ground;


He comes to make His blessings flow


Far as the curse is found.

 

He rules the world with truth and grace,


And makes the nations prove


The glories of His righteousness,


And wonders of His love.

 

This is Christmas; the presence of God in the person of Christ.  Know it.  Sing it.  Celebrate it.  Live it.  “God with us.”

 

Charles Cavanaugh