Born on Christmas Day

by Aaron

I was listening to the radio yesterday and I found an amazing thing, many radio stations are playing Christmas songs throughout the day. Most of the songs are updated renditions of old tunes with modern twists, but every once in a while a band writes a new Christmas song for the holidays.

It was of the new songs that caught my attention. Some people just think I like to nitpick about theology, and I do, but I also think that if we have wrong theology our view of God will be skewed. Not only will bad theology mean we will misunderstand Jesus, but we will also misinterpret what He is doing through His people in the world today...it could go so far that we could misunderstand what He has done in eternity past as well.

The chorus of this song kept repeating, "Hope was born on Christmas day." At first I found myself humming the tune (off key and very loudly, as I do in the car). But then I started to think how dumb the chorus was because hope was not born on Christmas day, JESUS WAS (unless Jesus changed His name and I didn't get the memo). Seriously, Jesus was born and hope was a very happy by-product. It seems that today we want to only see what we want to see about Christmas, "Jesus is nice to everyone, peace on earth," but our version of peace seems to be different than Jesus'.

Jesus, as God, knows that sin has caused separation between ourselves and God and ourselves and each other. This is why Jesus was born, to take care of the awful state that humanity had done to itself. Jesus brought our sin into the light and exposed it, Jesus called the religious elite who trusted in their own goodness hypocrites, and Jesus had to die because we are so bad.

Yes, I know what you are saying, "it's Christmas Aaron, lighten up, be happy." Well I am happy because Jesus was born...Merry Christmas.

Jesus' death and ultimate resurrection were never to be separated from His birth. It is one event in regards to our salvation. Jesus dies for our sins, rises from the dead to give us new life. It is birth, life, death, and resurrection.

Yes, Jesus offers hope...but He embodies so much more and it is the MORE we should see. It is Jesus we worship on Christmas (and every other day) not hope, love, peace or anything else...because it was Jesus who was born.

What, what...It's like this shirt one of friends just gave me (which I will never wear because I don't do Jesus junk). The shirt said, "Go Jesus, it's your birthday," at least a cheesy T-Shirt got it right.

Merry Christmas, worship Jesus.

And...before you get all uppity with me, YES, I know Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, but it is the day we celebrate His birth.  Let's get it right when we do.