The True Meaning of Christmas
Many tend to think that Christmas is a time to think of the birth of Jesus
Christ in a manger. Of course this is a miraculous and special event but it isn’t
the primary focus of Christmas. Most of the world will celebrate this day
without the knowledge that this child who was born in a manger is God.
Most of the world tries to keep God in His infancy in which He is cute,
adorable, tender, sweet, etc. They want to keep God in a place in which they
rule over Him by His infancy. The world loves this Jesus. This Jesus that they
create is not God. They simply create this Jesus in the own infringement of their
imaginations. The world accepts Christmas so easily because the Jesus that they
invent doesn’t say things like; “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven”
(Matt. 7:21) or “For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when
he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves” (Matt.
23:15) even when He says “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and
mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he
cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). The world doesn’t want a Jesus who makes
offensive and authoritative remarks about their corrupted hearts.
God in a manger
Christmas is about Jesus Christ’s deity; not about His infancy. The
humility that God took on by becoming fully man and being born into this
world, yet at the same time fully God - all powerful and all wise. All seems to be
unexplainable. That God came to become an infant without forsaking His deity
and divine nature is incredible. This was a true act of humility to become a lowly
of a creature like man.
Paul, in Colossians 1:15-20 pens about the essence of Jesus’ divine nature,
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things
were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions
or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before
DwellingWithGod.com The True Meaning of Christmas By Jay Gheen
The True Meaning of Christmas
all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be
preeminent.” Paul was saying that Jesus Christ is an image of God. The Greek
word translated “image” means a duplicate, a precise copy, a perfect replica. The
baby in that manger approximately 2,000 years ago was indeed God incarnate,
simply God who was manifested in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Christmas story is that Jesus Christ who is God; humbled and
lowered Himself to become fully man and not forsaking His own deity.
Christmas is focusing not on the infancy of Jesus but the deity of Jesus; the God
– Man.
DwellingWithGod.com The True Meaning of Christmas By Jay Gheen