Merry Christmas

A few millenia ago, Adam and Eve (our great-great-great-great-great … uhh …you get the idea! … -grandparents) used to walk around in the Garden of Eden chatting with God. I have no idea what this looked like, but I do know that it has to have been good. Think about it … God, the Creator of the universe, is right there, hanging out with the man and woman that He made.

Then, of course, Adam and Eve messed it up. Before we get to be too hard on them, though, let’s bear in mind that the only reason they were the first sinners is because they were the first people.

Still, because of their sin we all have had to live with the curse from the Fall, and the separation from God. However, He didn’t just curse mankind. He also cursed the serpent, and it is that curse that deserves particular attention today (Genesis 3:15, NIV, courtesy of BibleGateway.com):

“And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring ^[a] and hers;
he will crush ^[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

With this is foretold the events we commemorate today — there is hope despite the Fall of mankind. Satan will be crushed.

For millenia thereafter, mankind lived with a separation from God. We didn’t get to walk with Him, hang out with Him in the fields, or any other such thing … until about 2000 years ago.

A woman in Bethlehem, still a virgin, gave birth to the Son of God and named Him Jesus. For a little more than thirty years, some of mankind could again know a part of the experience Adam and Eve had known long before. It’s not clear how many people really knew what they were experiencing — some knew better than others, of course.

For about thirty years, Jesus walked among us. It was by no means the same as in Eden, but once again God walked with mankind. For a time, God was right there, bodily, among the human race.

Can you fathom what that must have meant?

God came back. Not because we deserved Him, but because of His absolutely mind-blowing grace. (By the way, if His grace doesn’t blow your mind, you might want to spend some more time thinking about it!)

He gave us a taste of what eternity can be. A few people knew Him, and got to touch Him and be His friends.

Then, of course, came the end of that phase. In order to seal the deal, Jesus had to atone for our wrongdoing. He suffered in a way that no one else had or could. Not only was He beaten and crucified (not unique events, I’m afraid), He was afflicted for every sin every sin, so that His punishment would atone for them.

We now have the opportunity to live that life, forever in the presence of God. We can’t earn it. We can’t deserve it. We can be given it, if we remember Who that baby in a manger is and why it mattered.

By all means, enjoy your festivities and your family. I don’t think for a moment that there’s anything inherently wrong in that. My family had ours yesterday, and I’m quite content with it.

Please, though, don’t leave that baby in the manger. He’s far more than can ever fit in a manger, a stable, or any other man-made construct.

I am going to walk with Him on the other side of eternity. I hope that you are, too. It neither began nor ended with that first Christmas … but it is a noteworthy waypoint. God came back to earth, bodily, to be among us after what we’d done, betraying Him before. Wow.

Merry Christmas.

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