Please Meditate On Christmas

If you ask people why we celebrate Christmas, or about the meaning of Christmas, there are three basic answers.

“It’s when we celebrate Jesus’ birthday!”

“Christmas is a time of giving, peace, and joy.”

“Christmas is a time to spend with family and friends, a time of good food, and gifts.”

There is truth in all three of the statements above, yet none of them really gets to the meaning of Christmas. Why did Christmas happen in the first place? When I say, “Christmas,” I am referring to the birth of Jesus Christ. Why was He born? When someone truly considers the purpose of Christ’s birth, it can change their lives and eternity.

My favorite part of the Christmas story is when the angel comes to Joseph. In Matthew chapter one, Joseph is trying to figure out what to do. Verse 19, “Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.” What is going on in this verse?

The verse calls Joseph, Mary’s “husband.” At the time, they were only engaged, so why does the passage use the word husband? In our society, if something serious happens during an engagement, the couple simply calls off the wedding and goes their separate ways. However, in Joseph’s and Mary’s day, an engagement was legally binding; to end an engagement, they needed a divorce.

The verse also states that Joseph “was minded to put her away privily.” This is because Joseph had two options regarding divorce. He could do it privately. The two of them would go before a priest. Joseph would explain his reasons for wanting a divorce, and the priest would decide whether to grant it. The marriage would be called off, and the two would move on with their lives.

Joseph also had the option of a public divorce. In a public divorce, an audience would be present. Witnesses could be called, and a judgment of punishment could be rendered. A public divorce is possible because of Joseph’s reason for the divorce. Mary went to visit her cousin Elisabeth and came home pregnant. Sex outside of marriage was punishable by death. Joseph was literally deciding whether Mary would live or die.

At this point in the story, Joseph has no idea that Mary is still a virgin and the child within her is the Son of God. God intervenes by sending an angel to Joseph to explain what is going on.

In explaining that Mary is delivering God’s Son, he tells Joseph the reason for it all. Matthew 1:21, “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

People will call Jesus a great teacher, a prophet, someone who sets the example on how we should live. Yes, He is all these things, and more, but the reason He came was to be our Saviour. He cured the sick, He walked on water, He fed thousands of people with a boy’s lunch, He even raised the dead, but the reason He came was to save us from our sins.

How does Jesus save us from our sins? Three times the Bible calls Jesus the “propitiation.” Two of those are found in the book of 1 John. 1 John 2:2, “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” and 1 John 4:10, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Propitiation is not a word most of us use; so what does it mean? A propitiation is an appeasement, a gift given to calm someone’s anger. Here is an illustration: a husband and wife argue. The husband, wanting to rid his wife of the anger she has toward him, buys her a gift: flowers, jewelry, or something he hopes he can give her to stop her from being mad at him.

Jesus Christ is the gift given to God the Father on our behalf to rid God of the anger He has toward us. How does this work? How is Jesus given to the Father? John the Baptist expresses how this works in John 1:29, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Everyone there should have known what John was saying. Jesus would be the blood sacrifice for sin.

In Jesus’ day, animals were sacrificed for sins, but the Bible explains that those sacrifices did not remove sin from anyone. Hebrews 10:4, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” A couple of verses later, we read God’s opinion of the animal sacrifices. Hebrews 10:6, “In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.” Then, a few verses later, we read of Jesus’ sacrifice. Hebrews 10:10, “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

I stated earlier that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was the gift given to the Father to appease His anger toward us; you may be thinking, “I haven’t done anything to make God mad at me.”

First, our sin has separated us from God (Isaiah 59:2). Second, without faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, God is mad at you. John 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

It’s not that we commit a bunch of sins, then God gets fed up with us. We start out condemned. John 3:18, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Our faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is how we bring Jesus’ sacrifice to God the Father as our appeasement gift. We stop believing that our goodness is enough to place before God. We stop believing that our religious rituals are enough for God’s forgiveness. The blood of Jesus Christ is the only gift the Father will accept. To apply the gift of the blood of Christ, we must believe that it is the only thing that can wash our sins away.

What is the reason for Christmas?

Christmas was to bring into the world the sinless sacrifice that would eventually go to the cross and die for the sins of the world. Without God coming to this world in the form of a man, dying on the cross, and rising from the tomb, we have no hope for this life or the next. Without Christmas, meaningful hope is impossible.

Please meditate on Christmas.