Christmas isn’t so much about “when” as it is about “why.”  Here are three good questions (and answers) to help understand the “true meaning of Christmas.”  Merry Christmas!  Bob

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Spirituality Column #840

December 20, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Timing Isn’t Everything, Part 2

By Bob Walters

And it came to pass …Joseph went up to Bethlehem … with Mary his espoused wife who was great with child. And … the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. – Luke 2:1-6

Rather than expend forensic effort on the logistical specifics of Jesus’s birth – what date, who was there, was it a stable or a cave, etc. – here are three questions we must ask ourselves … in faith … to understand the true meaning of Christmas:

1. Was Jesus born of the virgin Mary?

2. Was Jesus who He and the Bible say He was and is?

3. Why did Jesus come?

First, “Was Jesus born of the virgin Mary?”

For this one we’ll go word by word. 

Was – Did this event happen in history?  Yes.

Jesus – Did a man named Jesus exist?  Yes.

Born – Was Jesus a fact/creation of human biology? Yes.

Of the virgin – Biologically, naturally impossible, but “nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37).

Mary – Yes, Mary existed, and was a human woman.

So … Was Jesus born of the virgin Mary? Yes.  That establishes the miracle.

Second, “Was Jesus who he said he was?”

Throughout the Gospels Jesus calls God His Father.  That makes Jesus God’s son.  Was Jesus fully God and fully human?  Jesus says he will go back to the father, in heaven, and prepare a “room” for all who believe.  He has to be God to do that.  Jesus says he will send the spirit to comfort and educate believers.  He has to be God to do that.  Jesus lived, worked, spoke, bled, and died.  He had to be human to do that.

But was Jesus truly part of the Godhead, the Trinity?  Jesus spoke of God the Father and of the Holy Spirit in terms that included He, himself, Jesus.  Yes, Jesus was part of the Trinity (by the way, the word “trinity” does not appear in the Bible; Tertullian invented it in the second century).  

“Yes” here establishes Jesus’s identity: God/Man.

Now … third.  “Why did Jesus come?”

It is the biggest question of all.  The easy answer of course is that Jesus came for our forgiveness and our salvation.  But what was God’s purpose in miraculously sending His Son into humanity? Why Jesus?  Why not just a flick of God’s divine fingers to say, “Snap!  It’s all fixed.”?  Answer: Because there is neither faith nor glory in that snap.

Nor is there reciprocating love, truth, education, or obedience.  There is nothing about ourselves becoming the humble and selfless sacrifice that Jesus presents to the world.  We could never understand the glory of our relationship with God.  We may not feel very glorious in our earthly, broken, sinful, aching bodies, but our relationship with God’s glory and righteousness that we have through our faith in Christ and with the urging of the Holy Spirit … that’s what the Law on those tablets could never provide.

Jesus Christ was a canvas of God’s life humans could understand.  Jesus didn’t tell us how to act; He told us to love.  He told us who we could be – who we were, who we are – in God’s creation, God’s eternity … and God’s love.

That’s the true meaning of Christmas.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) celebrates the savior and loves the celebration.