Christmas Presents

What is the best part of Christmas?

We talk a lot about Christmas, especially as believers, but there is a reason for it. Yes, just in the worldly idea, it is a great time to spend with family and friends. I love the decorations, just the overall feeling.

The thing for believers is that we have a point to remember the birth of Jesus. We talk about it so often because we should never forget what our savior did for us.

The challenge with any Christmas lesson is that more than likely you have heard a lot of the same ones, and to a degree they are all similar, but that is because our God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Tonight I do want to look at the greatest gift of all, and that gift being

Jesus

But I want to go different than the normal Luke passage. Instead, we are going to look at John and Philippians.

John 13:1–3 ESV

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,

I love this image first to start. Yes, this is the moment before Jesus is supposed to be arrested and sent to the cross, so yes, it would feel like an easter passage, but I think it also fits for Christmas, and I will show you why.

Jesus is sitting around a table with His friends. His disciples, with the people that He loved. With the creation that was made in His image, the people that He was sent to die for.

Picture the moment.

John 13:2–5 ESV

During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Jesus has now gotten up from His spot at the table, taken off his garment, and wrapped it around His waist to wash the disciples feet.

This was the place of a servant.

This was the reason that Jesus was born.

Parallel to Philippians

Philippians 2:5–8 ESV

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

We talk a lot about Jesus being born in a manger, and the image of that, and often we focus on the cute little baby, the setting, and trying really hard in the middle of the season to remember why we celebrate.

To add to this, we need to also remember something, what Jesus did when He came down to earth. Yes, He came as a little baby, but when we look at Him coming down, He came down from Heaven. He was seated at the right hand of the Father. He was and is God, the Son in the trinity, and in perfection, He decided to leave it all and take on the form of a human, but more than a human, the form of a servant.

When John talks about Him taking off his outer garments, we can pair this with this passage in Philippians and see that symbolism of Jesus coming to the earth. Him taking off, or laying aside the privileges that were His in heaven.

Let me be clear, Jesus did not empty or remove His divine nature, He was and is fully God, even in that moment, but imagine willingly choosing to leave perfection, a throne in Heaven seated at the right hand of God to come in the form of an infant, to live in this broken world, only to know that you are going to willingly give up your life.

This is where we can start to look toward the Luke passage that we all know.

Luke 2:1–7 ESV

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Even the way that He was born was showing His purpose here on this earth. That He came to serve, not to be served.

And then we can look forward as to why He came

John 13:6–9 ESV

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

Jesus came to wash us of our sins.

What do you need to bring to Jesus?

While we remember the reason for the season, lets look at the whole reason for the season. With that, knowing that Jesus came to die for our sins, the full payment for our sins, and not only that, but the continual work in our lives to remove the sins in our lives and pull our hearts toward Him.