“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.” Luke 2:14
”But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
Luke 6:35-38 ESV
The great truth celebrated by Christians at Christmas is that God Himself entered history as a baby. Born low. In a manger. And not in the idealized and sweet settings depicted artistically throughout culture, but in a feeding trough for animals. Indeed, the most high God of the universe was thus born in the humblest of circumstances to poor parents. For us. While we were yet sinners and hostile to Him. This is the most astonishing fact of all time. It boggles the mind.
The reality of the gospel starts at Christmas, at the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ and then carries forward to His life, death and resurrection. As a writer I like to say that no greater story has ever been told, nor will be, than God’s story of redemption. Who would’ve thought to write such a thing? The God-man born in such humility and poverty! And for what? To bring wrath upon the world that had rejected Him and gone their own way? Surely, we deserve His wrath. But, no.
He was born so that all who believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life. Who can conceive such a thing as a God who’s so infinitely righteous that the slightest sin deserves eternal death? The thought is utterly terrifying. His holiness, even the mere glimpse of it, sends shudders of fear and inadequacy throughout our fragile beings because we know that we aren’t holy. Ever since the Garden of Eden men and women have been sowing together fig leafs and trying to find cover behind some bush or another. We try and push out the dread from our thoughts. We find some bushes here – a job, a hobby – or some over there. We play with alcohol or food or sex. Modern America dispenses drugs by the boatload instead of handing out fig leaves to cover our anxieties and depressions. But no leaf or tree or bush is big enough to cover the shame and consequences of sin.
It’s to this that He comes to our rescue. He’s our sabbath rest and the Kinsman-Redeemer. He’s our Jubilee Year of release. In Christ alone, through His love, we have peace with the God we’ve offended – the Creator God who is so unfathomably holy and righteous that only through faith can we approach Him. The birth of Christ for our redemption is the logic of righteousness and sin. No man may boast of his works because all have sinned and fallen short of God’s perfection. Because we are His and His alone we owe Him a perfect life of perpetual and personal obedience. Not only this, but made by Him and for Himself, our lives should be characterized by true worship. Romans 13:8 tells us to owe no one anything for the simple reason that every man and woman is the Lord’s and to become debtors/slaves again is unthinkable. We owe, in Christ, only love and always love. Do we love our neighbors? That is, in the law of the Lord and for His glory – not for what they can do for us or any other thing? True love is impossible unless first the heart of man has come to know sweet redemption. And this true love drives out fear and shame and bitterness. Who can be bitter or resentful who has taken great swallows from that inexhaustible cup of grace?
To come to the Lord in repentance means that we must love one another. Are we estranged from someone today? Are we holding anger or hurt close? How can a man who has just feasted upon the most succulent buffet still be hungry? It is thus with God’s love! Christ the child is born and that changes everything by changing the hearts of man from the arrogance and vengeance of Lamech to the humility of Christ . Christmas isn’t about presents under the tree and crackling fires, though those things are certainly sweet. It’s about God’s love being poured into our hearts and changing us from hateful and self-centered rebels and wretches to saints.
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. An empty well has no water just as a heart that hasn’t come to Christ has no forgiveness. So now, the well of our hearts is over-full with all that love and for that reason on Christmas Day we should take stock. They will know we are His disciples (disciplined learners) by our love of all men. And love does no wrong to a neighbor. We don’t slander each other, gossip, hold grudges, or feel all high and mighty when we truly love. This is the Christmas story…it is the story of Christ who died so that we might live. The evidence that we’re alive in Him is that we forgive those who trespass against us and bless those who persecute us. Yes. Everyone. Joe Biden. Donald Trump. That dude who cuts us off in traffic. Great and small. Love keeps no record of wrongs.
“And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord do not hold this sin against them.’ And when he said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:59).” Can this be said about us? Is this the love that Christ has inspired in our hearts, that we would use our dying breath to intercede for those who were literally killing us? Oh, let us use this Christmas to understand how great and vast the love of God is and pray that it changes us through and through so that the world would know His love!
In Christ, through faith alone, all that we owe is credited to us. We have His perfect, personal and perpetual obedience to God. He takes our sin and gives us His righteousness. So, therefore, we have peace with the holy God because of what He’s done for us. This is the reason for our joy and peace today and every day thereafter. The birth of Jesus Christ for us…yes, for us personally, bridges that seemingly infinite gap between perfect holiness and love. The logic of the gospel is clear: God’s righteousness is so high that only He can make sinners right with Himself. And the logic is also clear that those who are forgiven for much will not refuse to forgive the trifles committed against them.
Thus, the birth of Christ is the greatest gift of all time because God so loved you that He sent Christ into the world to be the perfection you can’t be and to pay the price of sin so that you won’t. And this gift is received by faith and the heart fills with unspeakable joy to know that, indeed, God’s love is one’s own now. Because He was born we rejoice because it means we can say:
“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” Luke 15:24
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