Christmas celebrates the birth of a child. The fact is that the actual birth took place sometime around the middle of March, but the important point is that this child is born. His birth was predicted hundreds of years before, and wise men, astrologers, who watched the movements of the planets and stars knew immediately that something big was upon them. They took this word so seriously they set off on a long journey for their time to go and see what this event was.
Closer to home, there were shepherds outside the town of Bethlehem who experienced a visitation from a band of angelic beings telling them of the birth of this child. Uncharacteristically, they left their flocks to see what this was all about.
If this was the end of it, we would just have a cool story, but there is much more to this that the young mother and her bewildered husband could comprehend at the time. Kids are cute and a joy to their families, but this was not just any child.
This child was conceived by the Holy Spirit, without the help of a human father. This alone would make him unique, but this alone enabled him to be and do what he came to live among us to accomplish.
Around thirty years later he and a group of followers traveled the countryside in the land we now know as Israel. He spoke of having a right relationship with the Creator, not by following a list of dos and don'ts, but by having faith in his soon to be accomplished task. He healed the sick and drove out evil spirits – something following a list or rules will not prepare you to do. His followers learned to do the same.
At that time people who did wrong and committed sins (and everybody does wrong and commits sins) would bring an animal to the priests to be sacrificed in payment to a just God whom they offended by their behavior. This had to be done over and over again as the blood of the sacrifice only covered the sin and did not provide permanent forgiveness.
What was needed was a sacrifice that, once and for all, provided forgiveness for sin. This is the point of Christmas as the baby, now a man, the only perfect man who ever lived said he would pay the price for the sins of all of us. He died a horrible death at the hands of the brutal Romans on a cross meant for thieves and murderers.
The difference between his death and that of the thousands the Romans crucified as they maintained their control of the Jewish territory, is this man, Jesus, did not stay dead. Three days later he walked out of the tomb, conquering the enemy of death for all of us. Now most of us will not return to life on this earth, but we do have a choice of where we will spend the eternity after our time here is over.
By accepting Jesus death as payment for the sins of our lives where we have fallen short of the perfection God requires, he takes us to the paradise he, with God the Father, has created for us. If we don't accept that payment, the alternative is to spend eternity in the place created as punishment for the rebelious angels who were thrown out of heaven following Lucifer's rebellion. None of us are meant to be there and that is why Jesus sacrifce was provided.
That is why we have Christmas. It's not just about the baby, but the man he became.
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If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. I John 1:8