Christians usually think of the events remembered at Eastertime as being what saves us from ourselves, and returns us to God: Jesus’s atoning death to remedy our sins (everything that stands between us and God) and Jesus’ resurrection from death to demonstrate that God wil bring us through death to eternal life. yet, i want to share an idea – that Christmas is where we are saved.
Christmas celebrates and remembers the birth of Jesus, and that Jesus is God: God born as a human. It makes perfect sense if we think of what God is wanting to accomplish: to re-everything! To re-connect humankind to God, to redeem us from our debt of broken relationship with Him, to restore us to the beautiful peace we once had with h=Him, when Adam and Eve walked in the primal garden with God. If being ‘saved’ means anything – it means these things – that God can mend in us, and for us, everything that is broken in our live – individual and collective.
So God taking the initiative when we couldn’t pull ourselves up by our own bootlaces, is the beginning and the substance of our salvation. God came to us, when we did even know Him. He came to us in the form was can most readily relate to, not as a earthquake wind or fire, but as a human.
More than that, he chose to be born a baby, and to grow into an adult, rather than just appearing as an adult. God is a humble God, not ashamed to experience all of the awkward growing that we do. he steps into our reality, and so sanctifies it – makes every part of our life sacred, even submitting to a mom and dad, even learning theology by sparring with the teaches of theology in the Jerusalem temple! Yes. Emmanuel – God with us. God saves us by becoming one of us for 30 or 33 years, revealing Himself to us in all His sinless perfection, eternal wisdom, beautiful humility and compassionate leadership. God saves you and me by living in and through our lives. Merry Christmas! May Jesus live deeply in your mind and heart, body and soul.