“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[a] because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
What is Christ’s greatest accomplishment? It was not His miracles or His insightful teaching or His example of love. The greatest achievement of the God of Christmas is salvation. Sin is a powerful force in our lives and holds us in captivity. The Bible describes our spiritual struggles and failures in various ways. For example, we are trapped as it were in a sea of mud. The more we struggle to get out, the deeper we sink. We are in a dark pit whose walls are so high that we can’t possibly climb out. We are so terribly ill there is no cure. We are in a prison with no hope of being released. We are lost and don’t know where to go. This is where the mission of Christmas brilliantly shines.
Jesus is a great example, but His example is too high for any of us to keep, left to ourselves. He is a great teacher, but truth by itself can’t save us. If you are drowning, you don’t need someone to shout instructions from the shore. You don’t need a lecture on swimming. You need someone to come into the water and save you. God’s Son, Jesus, comes to us in our captivity, in our terrible and hopeless dilemma, and rescues us. His death on the cross demonstrates His great love for us in saving us from our sins and paying the price for our deliverance and forgiveness. Jesus is God’s deliverer—this is God’s rescue strategy—He sends Jesus to Earth to save us and to bring us to Heaven. This is the God of all grace, reaching down, down, down to you in the mission of Christmas.
Excerpted from :
The Mystery and the Mission of Christmas Good News for the Whole World
Written by John Munro
Decision Magazine, A BGEA Publication