The Central Significance of Christmas {Christmas Meditation #3}

December is here. The lights are going up and people are looking forward to the Christmas season again. It is the time of year that brings to mind many joyous themes and remembrances of Christmases gone by with family and friends. Along with the many joys of remembering are also times of sadness when loved ones who we wish were around the tree with us are no longer here. This mixture of joy and sadness in our memories drives us to search for a deeper meaning to Christmas. We hear themes of peace on earth, love, and the giving spirit, and perhaps how Christ exemplified these, but, however true these are they have not hit upon the central significance of Christmas. That central significance is found in Christ Himself, and our worship of Him.

In the first chapter of his gospel the apostle John under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit reveals truths about our Lord which should catch our hearts up in the worship we want to bring to Him during this season. John uses the title “The Word” to identify Jesus (v. 1). Now, we can think of a word as a vehicle of communication whereby the thoughts, reasonings and heart of one person is communicated to another. In Jesus, God is communicating with you personally. He is sharing His thoughts, reasonings and heart with you. If you have placed your faith in Him and have received Him into the heart to heart communion that He desires with you, He is the God you know and worship. God is too great and too awesome for any of us to fully understand. But what we can understand has been explained to us by Jesus (v. 18). We know God personally, and during this Christmas season we worship Him in the wonder and joy of Who He is.

As we worship we are captured by further truths about Him. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (v. 1). Our Lord, the Word become flesh (v. 14), has eternally existed in communion with the Father, and is fully divine. This mystery of one God eternally existing in Three Persons, the Trinity, is one of those wonders beyond our comprehension. What we do comprehend, and is the fundamental source of joy in every believer, is that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (ch. 3 v. 16). This One we worship at Christmastime came in full humanity, died on the cross for our sins, conquered death and brings each one of us who have trusted Him into a place we could otherwise have no hope of attaining, eternal life in the wondrous presence of our glorious God. He is the Word, the eternal Son, the Christ, God with us, our Lord, the One who saves, the One who sits at the right hand of the Father in glory, the One who knows you—and you know Him and worship Him!

Marty currently serves on the Chaplain team of Skyword ministries at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago and resides with his wife in the suburbs of Chicago.

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