God's Son

THIS WEEK has been a very merry Christmas week. I've been blessed with nights when I have gone out with my family and seen the lights or stayed home, watched movies like "It's a Wonderful Life," and gone shopping at the Town Center, which is one of my favorite places to go.

One of my favorite things this week was the special Christmas Eve Service at Southpoint Community Church. We sang the best Christmas songs - the ones that are actually about Jesus Christ - and we listened to Pastor Russ' message about the wonder that God came in the flesh to have a human experience. That human experience meant that we can know He knows how we feel and that He could die in the place of sinful humanity. We needed a perfect sacrifice to take all our sins away, and so He gave Himself to us.

We also had Communion that evening. Pastor Russ calls it a "spiritual meal." It's amazing what a tiny, square cracker and a little cup of red juice represent. It is truly a spiritual experience to eat these things, for I remember that Christ really died - died! - for me, and that it is so much more than a story. When I'm eating that cracker - not even enough to fill my mouth - I remember His body being hung up on a cross. When I take that single sip of juice - only enough to cover my tongue -I remember His blood falling to the ground, and it all becomes more real to me than it already was. It's good. Jesus told us to do this is remembrance of Him, and that is precisely the purpose it serves. It is a gift that He has given us just to help us keep Him in our minds.

The worship at church that night was spectacular, but in particular one song that we sang has really stuck with me. It really reminds me of what a wonderful thing it is that God has given us His Son, Himself. I just looked it up: it's called "How Many Kings" by Downhere. The chorus goes:

"How many kings stepped down from their thrones? How many lords have abandoned their thrones? How many greats have become the least for me? How many gods have poured out their hearts to romance a world that was torn all apart? How many fathers gave up their sons for me? Only one did that for me."

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

Can you imagine anything that is so precious to you that you would give a child for it? I think of Abraham, whom God told to sacrifice his long-awaited, only son. Abraham consented, although God did sent an angel to stop him at the final second and a ram to be the sacrifice instead. God was measuring Abraham's faith and obedience.

I don't think Abraham would have given his son for just anything. Would you? No, only the most important thing - God - could make him willing to do that. How much more amazing is it that God came into this world in the body of a Man, His own Son Jesus, to reconcile us to Himself? Only God can make a sacrifice like that.

Yesterday I was at a Christmas party with my family, and I saw my brand new cousin Marco for the first time in several weeks. He was born on the first of this month, and today he is only 25 days old. His every movement is precious and wonderful and amazing, and he is so small and fragile. He is the perfect thing to cover with kisses cradle with love. I see how very much Marco's parents love him. I have not yet had the chance in my life to love someone quite as much as a father or a mother loves a son or a daughter. But I know it is a very strong, protective, unconditional love, because I have been loved this way by my own parents.

It was someone even more precious than little Marco that God gave for us. He knew we needed someone perfect, someone completely sinless and righteous, to take up the sins of anyone who believes. We needed someone to come and suffer for no sin of His own, but for all of ours, in our place. We needed someone of immeasurable, infinite price. Only He could be that perfect. So He sent Himself. That's what we celebrate at Christmas.

Think about the fact that God gave something so precious as His own Son, even His own self in the flesh, to this world to die for us. Please think about this. It means that God the Father loves the sinful world enough to give His only precious Son, so that if we'll just believe in Him and come back home to Him our souls won't die but will live forever in His arms. That is a love too big to wrap our minds around. It's too big to fathom even with all of the minds in the world put together.

It means that He wants so much for us to be His, to serve Him and love Him, to come home and be cherished, that He is willing to give up His own Son in our place. As precious as Jesus is, it was something that was more profound even than Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son.

The great thing is that once Jesus Christ had been sacrificed, God continued the miracle even further and resurrected Him, showing Him to so many people that it could not be reasonably denied that He is risen. So the faith spread and still spreads continually.

In Romans 8:31-34 Paul writes, "[31] What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? [32] He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? [33] Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. [34] Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."

Let's celebrate Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection, and the sure hope of His return, not only during Christmas but on every day of the year. Let's show how real He is to us, keeping the idea of Communion in our hearts all the time. Let's show how beautiful it is that He is so good to us and fills us with such life, such living water, such an abundance of the Holy Spirit. Let's tell the world who it is who has been born King of the Jews, in the town of Bethlehem.