As we are in the midst of another Christmas season, I find it helpful to take time to think back to that first Christmas a little over 2,000 years ago. The arrival of Jesus on Earth marked the most significant milestone in God’s plan to save people from their sin.
It all started back in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the Earth. His creation was perfect. His creation functioned perfectly. His creation was not blemished, tarnished, or marred in any way. He created Adam and Eve to live in His creation – to care for and keep it, and to live in perfect relationship with Him.
But something happened, something terrible happened. Adam and Eve sinned, they were deceived, and they knowingly rebelled against God and His ways. Sin (rebellion against God) is rooted in pride, and in their pride, Adam and Eve believed they knew better than God. At that moment, the perfection of creation changed – death entered the world, physical death and spiritual death. Spiritual death in the fact that Adam and Eve were now separated from God. God is unequaled, unrivaled, good, pure, perfect, and sinless, which means He cannot be in the presence of sin. Sin brought separation and death into the world. You see, God created us to be in relationship with him – He loves us and desires to be in relationship with us, but sin is the hindrance to that relationship.
But even in that moment, God had a plan to reconcile people back to himself. He would provide a child who would deal with sin and death once and for all (Genesis 3:15). For generation after generation, the Jewish people were waiting for this child, their Savior, the Messiah, to arrive. They tried their best, but their best was never good enough. God was patient, God was gracious, God was merciful, God was waiting for the proper time to send the Messiah. For generation after generation, God spoke by prophets to tell His people that the Messiah was coming. The Messiah would be a descendant of King David, the greatest king the Jewish people ever had, and the Messiah would rule forever. The people waited with anticipation.
Fast-forward several thousand years and we arrive at a small, average, run-of-the-mill city in Galilee called Nazareth. The angel Gabriel appears to a young girl named Mary who was from a small, average, run-of-the-mill family. Mary, a virgin, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Gabriel tells Mary that she has found favor with God and that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, she will conceive and give birth to a child whom she is to name Jesus, Son of the Most High God.
Her fiance, Joseph, hears the news and is understandably troubled. Joseph is an honorable man and, in order to protect Mary, he decides to quietly release her from the engagement. Later that night, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him not to release her, but to marry her, because the son she is carrying is from God and he will save the people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Mary was pregnant with the Messiah, the Savior of people, the One who would reconcile people back to God!
Mary and Joseph travel to the sleepy little town of Bethlehem (which was also known as the City of David) because Caesar Augustus ordered that everyone in the Roman Empire must be registered for tax purposes. They traveled to Bethlehem because Joseph was a descendant of King David. As one might expect, the town of Bethlehem was packed and there was not a spare room in the town. Mary and Joseph finally found lodging in a small stable behind an inn.
Then it happened … the contractions started – Mary was ready to deliver her baby. Jesus, the Son of the Most High God, was born in a stable in the sleepy little town of Bethlehem – no great fanfare, no heads of state or dignitaries were present – just Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and some animals.
An angel appeared to some lowly shepherds in a field and told them the good news – a child had been born in Bethlehem, but this child was no ordinary child … he was Christ the Lord, the Savior! A multitude of angels appear singing praises to God, and the shepherds, still likely reeling from what they just experienced, decide to head into town to find this child. They find Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, and soon the word spreads that the amazing has happened.
This is what Christmas is all about: God, sending His one and only son into this world!
Thirty-three years later, this same Jesus would willingly lay down his life for our sins. Jesus, who lived a perfect, sinless life in humble obedience to his Father, would suffer a brutal death at the hands of the Roman Empire. His death was the payment for our sins; he took the wrath of God upon himself for our sins as he endured separation from his Father. Jesus did this to pay the debt for sin, a debt that we all owe. Jesus did this to reconcile us back to God, so we would no longer be separated from Him. Three days after he died, God raised him from the dead, which showed that God had accepted his sacrifice – sin and death had been defeated once and for all!
Jesus said that he was “the way, and the truth, and the life” and that “no one comes to the Father except through” him. Jesus is truth, Jesus is the only way to be reconciled back to God, Jesus is the only way to have your sins forgiven, Jesus is the only way to truly have life.
I would encourage you this Christmas season to consider Jesus, God’s one and only son whom he sent into this world to deal, once and for all, with the problem of sin. You were created to be in relationship with God, and God sent his son into this world to make that relationship a reality!
If you would like to read more about the Christmas story, please visit bit.ly/2RMkzTa and/or if you have any questions, please email me at phil@twinvillageschurch.org.
(Phil Nicewonger is the founding pastor of Twin Villages Church. Established in 2017 in a rental space above Salt Bay Cafe, it now occupies the former Methodist church at 40 Church St. in Damariscotta.)
