Celebrating The Birth Of Christ

by Pastor Dominic Ortega

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!" So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us."
Luke 2:8-15

Had there been newspapers in the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago, some of the headlines might have been:

"GRAIN SHIPS DOCK"
"PIRATE SHIPS SUNK BY SIXTH FLEET"
"STUDENTS CLASH WITH POLICE, ROMAN RIOTS END"

Such headlines would look very much like the headlines in our newspapers today. After all, the world of the New Testament was a world very much like ours. There were wars, sickness, poverty, slavery, misery, and injustice. There were people who struggled to keep on living. They were living by habit, long after they had lost any sense of purpose, meaning, or goal. It was a world very similar to ours, populated with people just like us, and God was about to burst into this world of lost men.

Jesus would be born in the most common of circumstances. He would enter our world to the simple sound of animals, and the smell of manure. It was an unobtrusive birth with no doctors, and no fine linen. Baby Jesus may have been born in simplicity, yet after His birth our world, despite all its problems, would never be the same. The birth of this Baby would do what no authority or invention of man could. One day that Babe, full grown, would say,

"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"
John 14:6

He is the way for those who are lost, He is the truth for those who are confused, and He is the life for those who are dead in their sins. To every person who lives without direction, hope, or meaning - to you and me - the birth of Jesus offers a fresh newness, a life turned around and transformed by the power of God.

We sometimes yearn for great and startling evidences of God's presence. We think, "if only I could see miracles as they happened in the Biblical days. If only something great would happen to me!" Oh how we long for the sensational, and how much we have to learn. For the greatest miracle of all, God's greatest work, is done in the simplicity of daily life that is common to millions of men. Take a look at the stable and you may wonder and ask, do the great things God wants to do in us, and for us, bear the same stamp?

Being just five miles from Jerusalem, the small town of Bethlehem was very unimpressive. Yet today it is one of the most recognized places on earth, all because of the birth of Jesus. Like Bethlehem, we too are very unimpressive, but He makes us great, not because of who we are, but because of Whose we are. While Jesus meets us in our sin, His purpose is to save us from our sins. He saves us first from the penalty of sin, then from the power of sin, and finally from the presence of sin.

What Christianity presents to the world is not simply a code of morals, nor a system of theology, but a person. Many will point to the great history of Christianity, but Christianity is much more than its history. It is the revelation of a present Savior and the living personal knowledge that Jesus is eternal life, not the knowledge of the facts about the Lord's history. Sadly, because the world does not realize that Jesus is the true treasure of Christmas, it gets caught up in spending money to buy love during the holidays. Christmas is a story worth repeating, and a song worth singing, but most of all Christmas is a salvation that you can know. Christ alone is worthy of our worship! Oh, come! Let us adore Him!

I pray that those who have ears to hear, will hear His voice
and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen