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Cor’ Conclusions—“What did Christmas look like for God?”

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Cori Cox Ely

What did Christmas look like for God?
For most of us, Christmas is about comfort. It is about visiting relatives that you should have seen or spoken to before the holidays rolled around. It’s about your adult children taking a break from their lives to return home to their roots. It may also mean, for many of us, an incredible journey down memory lane to our own childhoods of Santa laps, new gifts, and cousins, all ten thousand of them. So as we remember Christmas this week prior to, we can collectively agree that it is an occasion for harmony. This is, in the Christian calendar, the most significant day of the year. However, there is a certain point of view we are overlooking about or simply preferring to overlook. On Christmas Day God sent down his only Son, in human form, to save the world from sin. This should uplift any Christian! I mean, come one, this was it! The heavy weight of sin was going to be lifted from us, and we would forever spend eternity in the arms of our Creator. All of this landed on the shoulders of one man. At this particular time in our history, it landed on the shoulders of a very small child, His child.
We don’t often think about how God felt on Christmas Day. The day Jesus was born was solely his doings, but I cannot help but wonder what he experienced on the night His only Son was born to this broken earth. He could have kept Jesus in Heaven, by His side, and never have to experience what was to come.
I can’t speak for you, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I would do anything for my children. This is the love a parent has for their child. This is the self-sacrificing love that never keeps score or conveys restrictions or conditions to which they can give it. This is how we feel about our children. It is programmed within us that if their lives were to be threatened or if danger were to be looming, we would gladly and enthusiastically shield them by WHATEVER means necessary. On Christmas Day, this is exactly the embodiment of the birth of Christ. Except this was on a level we can’t possibly fathom. God sent his only Son to this world, which was consumed by sin and injustice, to be sacrificed. If you ask a Christian what that purpose of His birth to this world was, they may say something like, “ to save us all from our sin. So that we may spend eternity in heaven.” This is so very true thank our Lord. However, it doesn’t reflect the entirety of the situation in the way that it deserves. He did send his only son to this earth willingly to be marked as a martyr, tortured, persecuted, and excruciatingly murdered at the hands of the very people He was sent to deliver. I don’t know about you but the only thing more painful than being tortured, yourself, would be to watch your child be. That’s just what God did. He sent His Son to us, for us. He knew on that night that His Son would be vulnerable to the tragedies and massive pitfalls of human nature and the relentless violence of a world of sin. We may rejoice in that night, as we should, but what do you think God felt in that moment? How do you think He felt knowing without a shadow of a doubt, that he was sending His child to be born as a leader, an savior, yet ultimately as a sacrifice. Could you imagine as a parent watching your child suffer like this, or worse, leading them to be? I sure could not.
When we remember Christmas morning and all of the joy that comes along with it, we must acknowledge in a still respectful and reverent way, just how immense this cost was from our Lord. Envision what strength it took, knowing what was to come, to allow His Son to be born on this earth. Lets celebrate Christmas morning the way that we should. Let’s sing, and dance, and be merry. Because on this day, we had been given a redeeming Savior. But we cannot forget the other side of the story, the side of the parent. We cant forget to do our human-best to try and conceive what that sacrifice felt like for God. He may not have been cheering on that night. I, in my tiny human mind, see God in a quiet reverence. He knew he was to offer us eternal redemption, at great cost to Him. That deserves a quiet, raw, awe-inspired moment of utter thankfulness, as best we can. Be reverently thankful to our Father for making the sacrifice we can never truly imagine or repay and because of which, we will never have to. Merry CHRISTmas everyone!

1 Comment

  1. Peggy Emrich Simmons on December 21, 2016 at 9:03 pm

    Excellent!!!!

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