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Education Ministry

Posted on December 13, 2005 ...

When I was a child, I attributed the mystery of Christmas to the things that occurred only a few short weeks each year: The lights and decorations, the music with its particular feel, two weeks away from school, the anticipation of gifts. But there was always something else I could not quite put my finger on. As time ushered me into my young adult years, my sense of Christmas began to take on another dimension. I felt it as I returned to Nevada for the Christmas holiday. There I would rediscover the familiarity of home and reconnected with family and friends. That was Christmas for me, but still there was something more just beyond the reach of my understanding.

I have now reached my middle years. That great mystery, which my childhood mind could not grasp and my young adult mind took for granted, has started to come into full view. I still enjoy those other things, especially now as I watch my own children discover them for themselves. But I am drawn, as if by a whisper, to redirect my attention away from the world stage of holiday festivities to something else happening behind the scenes. It is here, in the realm of the spirit, that I discover the real mystery of Christmas.

The mystery is alluded to in those familiar opening chapters of the gospels according to Matthew and Luke: An angelic messenger, a young virgin suddenly with child, a distraught fianc?ɬ©?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s dream, a common manger scene, the unexpected adoration by shepherds and magi, two strangers who know something wonderful yet ominous. These things point to the mystery of Christmas, but they are not the mystery itself. The story behind the story is far more intriguing: God, the all-powerful Creator and Master of the all that is, became one of us. He subjected Himself to the limitations of flesh, the strange will of sinful men, the pain and sorrow of life on this planet, and finally the humiliation of a criminal?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s death. The particulars of the holiday point to a baby in a manger. But the mystery is about a secret invasion, a sacred mission of mercy, an incursion behind enemy lines to rescue prisoners of a cosmic war.

The true mystery of Christmas is how far God went for you and me. Christians rightly point to the cross as God?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s demonstration of His great love for us, and so it is. But let us not forget the path to the cross. God moved into our neighborhood. In a great irony, the One who created man in His own image took on the image of those whom He created. He entered the human story and became one of us in order to experience us, to laugh and cry with us, to touch and taste and feel all the things we touch and taste and feel, to embrace us and be embraced by us. Moved by a love greater than we can imagine, God went all the way for us.

May this mystery overwhelm your Christmas celebration. May your love for God grow deep as you contemplate His love for you.
- Michael