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The True Meaning Of Christmas

by Anna Wood  
12/03/2008 / Holidays

"For God so loved the world..." is one of the greatest verses in the Bible because it's so very true and simple. God loved us, first. God loved us when we didn't deserve it. He loved us when we turned our backs on Him. He loved us when we abused Him. He loved us enough to die for us in the form of the Second Person of the Godhead, Jesus the Son. Through the ages, many people have misunderstood the reason for Jesus' death on the cross: it wasn't an accident, God hadn't misjudged how people would react to His Son and He wasn't taken by surprise by it. Jesus didn't die because He was weak. Nobody took His life from Him; He died because His Father had determined that He would die in order that mankind might be saved. The death of Jesus Christ was a supreme act of trust in His Father, a supreme act of self-control (for the Creator to allow the created to beat, abuse, humiliate and murder Him); it was filled with gentleness (He healed the ear of the servant of the High Priest in the garden when Peter, one of His disciples, in a misguided effort to protect and defend Jesus, cut it off), with forgiveness (He prayed that His Father would forgive those who were abusing Him and had nailed Him to the cross), and, yes, with love...for He could have called 10,000 angels to fight for Him, defend Him and take Him down from the cross but then mankind wouldn't have had any hope of salvation. When, before time ever was, His Father told Him of His plan to create sons and daughters for Himself that would lead to His, Jesus, own death, He could have refused, saying, "I don't want to be human; I don't want to die. If they sin against Us, then let them die. They will deserve it. I don't." He would have been right. Mankind deserves eternal separation from God, we deserve to suffer for our rebellion (every day, every one of us) against Him, we deserve to die. We, on our own, have absolutely no way at all to bridge the gap between us and God that we created through our sin, and rebellion against God...rebellion that brought about the intense pain and suffering in the world. It wasn't what God intended or wanted for us when He created us, but God, out of love for us and wanting us to freely love Him back, gifted us with freewill. With that freewill we turned our backs on Him and His will for our lives, thus bringing suffering and death into the world.

But, "God so loved the world" so He provided a way out: "He gave His only begotten Son". He gave the best treasure that heaven had to offer in order to keep mankind out of hell. His gift was offered of love and mercy: a love beyond the finite limits of human understanding. The Godhead knew that in creating mankind, that mankind would rebel against Them and that that would lead to the death of Jesus on the cross: His death was no accident, it was intended by His Father, because, no matter how much He loved His Son Jesus, He also loved us and His love wouldn't just let us go without effort on His part to save us. So, the Godhead went ahead with creation and, in the process of time, Jesus was sent to be born to a virgin named Mary, who gave birth to Him in Bethlehem as the Scriptures had foretold. That sweet little Baby in the manger grew up to become a loving Son, not only to God, but to His earthly parents and, also a hard-working Carpenter with sawdust and sweat on His brow (it is said that in the second century, there were still items around that were known to have been made by the hands of Jesus and His earthly father, Joseph). When God decided that the time had come for Jesus to leave His home and His family behind and begin to preach, He, along with His followers, hit the road and spent between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 years as an itinerate Preacher with nothing to His Name and plenty of people who wanted to kill Him conspiring against Him. He traveled around and taught the truth of God, healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the crowds, wept with those who mourned, attended parties, attended weddings, helped out His friends and He loved. Day in, day out, everything that He did was motivated by love.

Everything that He does now is still motivated by love. God's love is a transforming love, though, not a weak accepting one. His Father's love sent His Own Son to the cross: a more violent love you will never see. His love is demanding: Jesus spent 40 days fasting alone in the wilderness before facing His temptation by Satan. His love is holy yet comforting: "Be ye holy as I am holy" is what He has said to mankind but, He also says, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest". It doesn't matter how we've sinned, or how great that sin is because God's love, grace and mercy is greater and can easily cover the sins of those who truly repent and turn from a life of sin: even the sin of those who crucified the sinless Son of God so many long years ago...even the sin of Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of Christians, who, through God's love and grace became Paul the disciple of the living Christ...even my sins (innumerable though they are)...and, even yours...no matter what your sins may be or how overwhelming they may seem. God can use our rocky and rebellious past to bring Him glory and bring us good: Romans 8: 28 promises that when it declares that "all things work together for good" when we "love the Lord" and are motivated, or called, by and according to "His purposes".

The Old Testament records how God created a perfect world for His sons and daughters, and, when they sinned, how He aside a people (through which Christ would one day come), and then delivered those people from 400 years of captivity and lead them through the wilderness, parting seas to provide for their escape and, then, sending food each and every day just to prove His love; the New Testament records how God sent a beautiful, perfect, little baby Boy to be born into poverty, raised in humble and humiliating circumstances (most everyone assumed Jesus was an illegitimate child...that was a very big stigma then), to grow up to join the ranks of working men, paying taxes and working for a living...so that He could one day go to the cross and prove once and for all just how much He loved then...and how much He loves us now.

Jesus loved us enough to be born in a manger so that He could one day die on the Cross. He loves us enough that when we reach out to Him, He always reaches back. He loves us enough that He gave us His Word, the Holy Bible, so that we might know just exactly what He wants us to do, how to live, how to please and obey Him. He loves us enough to accept us where we are when we turn to Him and repent of our sins and throw ourselves upon His great mercy. He loves us too much, however, to leave us there. His love is a transforming love and when we let Him, He transforms us into the image of the perfect and beautiful Son of God, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, developing within us His heart, His mind, His will, His actions, His love, His servanthood so that then we can then become His hands, His feet, His mouth, His ears, His arms and His legs to a dying and lonely world so that they, too, might come to know His love and obey Him.

That's what Christmas is all about: the transforming power of the cross. God loved mankind enough to reach out to us to save us even though it meant the that Jesus would have to take on the form of a human and be born in humble circumstances, even though it meant that He would have to live a life of poverty as a working Man, even though it meant that Jesus would have to die on the cross. God loved us enough to have His Son go through all of that just for us. He loves us enough today to reach out to us again and again, to save us from our sins, to make us holy and to give us the abundant life; a life that is defined, not by physical riches so much as by spiritual ones, so that, we might become Jesus to others and love and serve as He did.

Anna Wood is a Christian wife, mother of 9 children, homeschooler and writer. Her desire is to know, love, and obey God and bring Him glory and help others to do the same. Her website is called The Apples of Gold and is at http://theapplesofgold.com

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