God With Us

Can you imagine a world without Christmas? No presents. No stockings. No parties. No Christmas carols. No Christmas Trees or wreaths or mistletoe. Could you imagine a world without Christmas? No Jesus. No God with us.

The world was made for Christmas; for Jesus, for God with us. God made the world and filled it with people and frogs and trees and flowers and sunshine and mountains and lakes. God made a world full of life and love abundant. He made a world to live abundantly and beautifully into eternity. He made a world of love to share its life and beauty with others. Lakes and mountains give rest and recreation, the sun shares its light and energy, flowers and trees share color and fruit, frogs…ribbit, and people were made to care for all of it. God imprinted man and woman in His image so they would love the world like He does. This world was made for Christmas. God with us is heaven on earth, full of His gifts of life and love.

Can you imagine a world without Christmas? It’s pretty easy, isn’t it? It does not look like heaven on earth. Instead of life and love, it’s an eternal winter of death and sin. Babies in the NICU, parents on hospice, cancer and Covid, family squabbles and cold shoulders, addictions and abuse, character assassinations and funerals. Instead of life, death surrounds us, stalks us, preys on us. Instead of love, sins hurt and haunt us, turn our hearts three sizes too small and make us all look like the Grinch who stole Christmas. Can you imagine a world without Christmas?

This world was made for Christmas; for Jesus, for God with us. Christmas is not just a time for presents and stockings and parties and carols and trees and mistletoe. Christmas isn’t even just about a baby named Jesus in a manger. It’s about what that baby came to do.

“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).” (Matthew 1:20-23)

Do you see what’s happening at Christmas? Christmas is the start of a new era! Jesus is conceived by the Spirit and born of Mary; this baby is one the world has never seen before. Jesus is a Son of Earth and a Son of Heaven! Heaven and Earth are reunited in a manger! God becomes man and heaven is forever tethered to earth! Jesus is the image of God in the flesh to love the world where we could not. Jesus is life and love incarnate to care for the world! God can’t imagine a world without Christmas. He is God with us.

God does not condemn His creation. He doesn’t leave you surrounded by death. He’s not satisfied with you as a sinful Grinch. He is not God against us. He is God with us, “for he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus, Love Incarnate, takes all your sin as His own and gives you His beauty and His righteousness.Jesus, Life Incarnate, explodes the tomb with life and obliterates death. Jesus, who is Heaven and Earth Incarnate, is born from the stable and born from the tomb to make this world His home forever! “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” This world was made for Christmas; for Jesus, for God with us.

You live in a Christmas world. Heaven’s greatest gift is here! It’s not just presents and stockings and mistletoe. It’s not just mountains and flowers and frogs. It’s not even just a cute baby in a manger. Heaven’s greatest gift is God with us, God for you. Christmas is the gift of a God who is with you and your baby in the NICU, with you and your parent on hospice, with you in cancer and in Covid, with you in the midst of family squabbles and cold shoulders, with in you in your addictions and abuse. He is God with you even at your funeral. He is the God who comes for you, bringing you life and love.

Heaven’s Christmas present is that you have life abundant promised to you, even when you are surrounded by death. Heaven’s Christmas present is that you have love and forgiveness abundant, even when you have blood on your hands. Heaven’s Christmas present is that a new era is here. The manger is heaven on earth, filling God’s creation with life and love. “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” Jesus is born the Son of Heaven and the Son of Earth to make this world His eternal home. Heaven on earth, reunited for you. This world was made for Christmas; for Jesus, for God with us.