Tuesday, December 21, 2010

On Christmas....

"But what God did about us was this. The Second person in God, the Son, became human Himself: was born into a world as an actual man- a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular colour, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything, and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a foetus(fetus) inside a Woman's body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab."  C.S. Lewis

Okay, so maybe it's weird to start a blog using someone else's words, but Mr. Lewis had a better way with words than your humble blogger. 

As Christmas draws near, I think it is important to remember the absolute miracle of why we celebrate. Admittedly, Jesus was actually born sometime in summer, but let's not get caught up in details. Instead, allow yourself to be immersed in the wonder of an all knowing, all powerful God stepping down from His Throne, to become like us. And here's the amazing-ness of it, He did it willingly and out of love!

I find it hard to understand, hard to grasp that God would give up Heaven to become a carpenter. That He would don the robes of a peasant having been the Maker of the finest silk. That He, the Creator of All Things, would allow Himself to be brutally murdered in the place of me. 

Every Christmas, I always long for Easter. I know it's silly, to trade Santa for a Bunny, right? But Jesus never told us to remember his birth. He told us to remember his death and resurrection.He instituted Communion for just that reason. I have blogged about this before, but I will summarize my thoughts. Without the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christmas loses it meaning. It is His triumph over death that secures our salvation. I do not say this to belittle His birth, but to emphasize the resurrection. 

So as we celebrate the birth the God Child, let us not forget the God Man who died for us.