Each of the four Gospels has a slightly different telling of the Christmas story, but did you know that Paul also told the Christmas story in Romans? The following passage from Romans 8 is not traditionally thought of as a “Christmas passage,” but the Message translation certainly opens our eyes to a new way of looking at Christmas.
God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem [of sin] as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. ~Romans 8:3-4 (MSG)
With nativity sets, ornaments, paintings, and carols, we typically picture Christmas as an innocently sweet scene. Yet from sin’s perspective, Christmas was the first blow of God’s redemptive war hammer! When Satan peered into the stable, he didn’t see sweet little angels, sheep, and swaddling clothes. He saw a mighty warrior waiting to burst forth from the manger and free humanity from sin’s slavery. He saw the first battle in a war that he would eventually lose.
The next time you look at that little nativity set or sing carols about the birth of Christ, remember that God indeed went for sin’s jugular. He personally put on an Earth suit, came onto the scene, and made war against sin and death. Christmas was the bugle call informing the forces of Hell that they would soon be defeated!
24 more Christmas readings like this one are available in Alan Danielson’s Christmas Reboot e-Book available here.
