The first Christmas did not happen in a vacuum. We do not understand the need for the Christmas story simply from the birth of Christ. We need to go to the beginning of the human story to really understand why God, in the person of Jesus Christ, had to come to earth. What necessitated the need for God to become a Man, live a sinless life and die a cruel death? The Bible states that we, as human beings, are the crowning achievement of His creation. We are made in the image of God.
However, even in the sinless paradise that man found himself in, there came a temptation— the temptation was simply that God, our Creator, was withholding from the created. God’s goodness was challenged, and as a result, the first human couple rebelled from an amazing, transparent and sinless life to one now tainted and ultimately corrupted by evil. The result was that the image of God was marred in us as humans, and now sin works at dehumanizing us. What I mean by that statement is that in creating us as human we are to reflect the nature and goodness of our Creator.
Now, with the birth of sin in the human family, sickness, alienation, and death were the outcomes for all generations. But God in His great mercy and love had designed a plan to reclaim us all from this terrible state through the substitutionary sacrifice of the Son of God.
Beginnings are often very fragile times and open to blatant temptations or subtle spiritual attacks. We see that in the early life of Jesus, as Herod tried to murder him. Instead, Herod killed all the little boys two and under in the little town of Bethlehem because of the visit by the Magi. The enemy is always threatened when God is implementing His plans through the lives of His children.
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