My favorite things about the first Christmas
I love Christmas, with the cozy vibes, Christmas movies, the music, no school and the events that go with the season.
Mostly, I love the story of the Nativity.
Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birthday. History can argue different times His birth could have happened, but Dec. 25 has become the popular day to celebrate.
That story is still important. It sets the scene for the most important event in the Bible, the love of Jesus to die for His creation, but He had to be born before He could die and rise from the grave.
One of the things I love best about Christmas is that God used everyday, ordinary people to carry out His eternal plan.
It’s a pattern throughout the Bible for God to use the simple, ordinary people and places to work for His purpose, and the Christmas story is the epitome of this pattern.
Mary and Joseph agreed to be the earthly parents for the Son of God. They were more than likely just teenagers themselves and weren’t wealthy by any means.
Imagine, approximately 2,000 years ago, in ancient Israel. The Roman Empire is occupying that part of the world, so Israel is under Roman law.
God has not spoken to His people in about 400 years, during the span from where the Old Testament ended until the start of the New Testament.
God isn’t calling on a prophet, as He did all those years ago. He’s not making a a public announcement or riding down from heaven in a blazing glory with a host of angels. He’s using a much more subtle approach.
The town of Nazareth in the northern part of Israel is home to less than 200 people, including a teenage girl named Mary. She was your average young lady, engaged to a carpenter named Joseph.
Mary agreed to be the mother of the Son of God.
Enter Roman occupation. Israel was under control of a people who held none of the same religion, culture or traditions as they did. The people of Israel were controlled by Rome, yet another country on the list that had held them captive for the past several hundred years.
It would only be natural for them to want someone to free them, to make them a great nation like they were under the reign of past kings.
Israel knew the prophecies predicting the King of kings’ coming. They were looking for the Mighty Warrior to come and take back their land, as written by the Old Testament prophets.
They were not expecting the King to arrive as the humblest and most helpless form of human life.
Luke chapter two tells us that the Roman emperor at the time of Jesus’ birth wanted to take a census and sent everyone to their hometowns to be counted.
Mary and Joseph were living in the northern part of the country, but Joseph’s family was from the south, the town of Bethlehem, which wasn’t much bigger than Nazareth.
The two traveled across rough terrain, probably joining other people also journeying for the census, taking up to a week to walk the distance. The two likely would have stayed with relatives living there.
When the time comes for Jesus to be born, the only place available is the stable.
Stables in ancient Israel were carved into the sides of hills or mountains, and some were connected to the main house. Whatever the case, surrounded by straw, animals and all the smells and sounds that come with a barn, the Son of God makes His grand entrance into the world.
A barn, a small town and a young carpenter’s family. This was the same Mighty King that Israel had been watching for, only not in the way they expected.
The purpose of Jesus’ arrival at Christmas was to complete the very first prophecy of His birth, way back in Genesis chapter three. After Adam and Eve, the first people God created, sinned for the first time, God promised to send Someone to defeat the sin that had now entered the world.
Not to be saved from physical enemies, but to be saved from sin (that is, any thought, word or action against God). The Name Jesus means “God saves”.
The only way for us to be saved from sin was for Jesus to die and redeem the Law.
The Law, outlined in the early books of the Bible, was set in place not for us to measure up to, but to show us how imperfect we are. Nobody could possibly keep the entire Law, and neither could Israel. Their shortcomings against the Law were redeemed by animal sacrifice, which could only cover their sins. They did not remove them.
Only a Perfect Sacrifice could fully remove sin. Jesus is perfect, so He was the One appointed to be our Perfect Sacrifice, coming into the world as fully God and fully man to fulfill the Law so we don’t have to.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
We know that the story of that night doesn’t end there. Outside of town, there were shepherds watching their sheep. Shepherds at that time had one of the dirtiest and most despised jobs in the country and were not very respected.
Yet, they were the first people on earth to hear of the birth of the Savior. Angels announced the news and told them where to find the Newborn King.
The Bible says they went out in search of the Son of God and found Him in a barn, not a palace.
They knew this was the Savior they had been waiting for, baby or not. Imagine what it would be like, after hearing about these prophecies passed down for thousands of years, to finally see the face of the Son of God.
Even if a shepherd had been allowed in a palace, they would have felt very out of place. A barn was familiar to them. A king or queen would never have been in the presence of shepherds, but a carpenter and his family weren’t much better off than they were.
Jesus didn’t start at the top of the ladder and expect us to climb our way up and try to be good enough for Him; He came right to where we are. He meets us in our messes, our broken state, rich or poor. He knows who we are and what we have done and comes down to us and raises us up to Him; not of our own doing, but because of what He does; not because of who we are, but because of who He is.
On that night, in the middle of nowhere in a captive country, the best news of all came to two young, poor parents and a bunch of ragtag shepherds.
After years of waiting, the time had come. For that night, God was with His people, using ordinary, everyday people and circumstances to change the world.