For many of us, Christmas is our favorite time of the year—the songs, the lights, the get-togethers with family and friends exchanging gifts and enjoying scrumptious dinners. The Christian belief is that God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, being both God and man, which is generally believed to be why we celebrate Christmas, but this raises the question: Why did he come? Was it to say “Hi,” and inform us of his divinity as the son of God, as evidenced by his miraculous birth from a virgin, or did he come to tell us about his father, and how to improve our lives by developing and strengthening our spiritual relationship with his father and with himself?
While the answer to these questions are true, neither of them is the primary reason for celebrating Christmas. To understand the main reason for Jesus’ coming, and why we should celebrate Christmas we should know that God created mankind to join him in heaven for eternity. He wants our company. We are indeed the crown jewel of God’s creation.
To guide us in our life journey, God provided us with many of his own divine attributes, most notably love and the ability to discern right from wrong via the moral compass of our consciences, and also providing us with awareness of his existence by providing us with the gift of faith. And finally, to help us know his will. God inspired the creation of a cohesive written document covering a period of thousands of years—all the dozens of authors of which were divinely inspired. It’s a compendium of 66 shorter books. This book—the Christian Bible—is still the world leader in terms of the total number of books sold since publication records were maintained, and still outsells all other published books year after year—presumably up to the present time. The Bible is sometimes referred to as God’s love letter to mankind.
Regrettably however, a problem had developed impeding our potential get-together. The problem was mankind’s unending transgressions (sins) in thought, word, and deed collectively being barriers to mankind deserving entry into heaven unless a price or penalty was paid—our redemption. Knowing that every man’s (and woman’s) most prized possession is his or her own life, God the Father determined that the penalty would be the death of his own son.
In summary, Jesus, who himself was sinless, came to earth to suffer and die on our behalf—this being the primary reason for God’s coming to earth, and why we celebrate Christmas. He was indeed our savior.
A final question that might be asked is how could one man’s death atone for all of man’s past, present, and future transgressions? Realize that this man was also God. As stated in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that whoever believes in him would have everlasting life.”
His son’s crucifixion and death on the cross being irrefutable evidence of God’s magnanimous love for us; and our future eternal life in heaven, if we believe in Jesus, is truly why we celebrate Christmas!
So, merry Christmas to all.
This article appears in Jan 5-12, 2017.