The Miracle of Christmas

https://odb.org/MY/2022/12/18/the-miracle-of-christmas

As we prepare for Christmas – it’s exactly one week away – let’s ponder and reflect again on the significance of Christmas in our lives. Not generally but in our own life, our own family. Some of us may be busy planning out what to cook for that day, how we will celebrate with family and friends. Some may be doing last-minute Christmas shopping, for titbits, presents, or just to take advantage of the year-end sales. Maybe we need another pair of shoes or a sweater or a nice shirt. Still, some of us are busy preparing for our Christmas performance in church, going for rehearsals and practice sessions. Others may just be in some land far-away, on holiday, perhaps in snow-covered cold!

The miracle of Christmas is that God came in the form of His Son to do what humanity couldn’t do on their own. We couldn’t atone for the sin of Adam on our own. Moses gave the Israelites the law, but they struggled throughout the centuries to follow and obey it. Sometimes obeying it literally but missing out the spirit. So Jesus came to fulfil the law and put the law in our hearts, that as we live in the Spirit, and not the flesh, we will have life and life eternal.

Jesus came on Christmas Day (symbolically, as the real day is subject to debate) as a baby through Mary’s womb, conceived by the Holy Spirit but fully human in form – 10 fingers, 10 toes. He grew up and worked like you and I, but His birth foretold many, many years before in Isaiah 9:6 and 7:15 and elsewhere. The Jews expected Him to come as a King, the Messiah, to deliver and save them from the Romans. Instead, He came to save mankind from their sins, in a lowly manger, among the shepherds in the field. He came from and lived among the common people, not nobility, although He was the King of Kings as He was there even before the foundations of the world.

Have a good Sunday worship today, but perhaps take today and this week to ponder upon the gift that we have received in the miracle of Christmas. The gift of eternal life brought by Christ is now ours. We are grateful and thankful for His goodness and mercy, for His abundant love in calling us to be His own. How are we repaying His kindness and grace, His death on the cross for our sins? Do we remember Him and the law written in our hearts in all that we do and in the words that we speak?