Today one hears many evangelical believers declaring that we must put Christ back into Christmas, that we must remember that He is the reason for the season. True! But we must also declare the complete Christmas Story.
As we approach Christmas, we need to remember that it was actually a 33-Year event (33 is believed to be the age of Jesus’ death, burial resurrection, and ascension). When there is a true celebration of the historical event of Christ’s birth, we should tell the story of a complete Christmas. If you are reading a biography, you never stop after having read about the birth and early years of the person. We keep on until we have read the entire account of the subject’s life. However, many people today celebrate the season and the sentimentality of Christmas and totally disregard “the rest of the story.” In the early church, they magnified the rest of the story (the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement of Jesus in his heavenly session.) and didn’t even celebrate Christmas at all! In fact, the celebration of Christmas didn’t begin until sometime in the late Third or early Fourth Century.
There are four basic parts of the Christmas Story:
A Baby in a Crib
“He was manifested in the flesh…”(1 Timothy 3:16).
Luke tells us, “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger (a crib), because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). John tells us that, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”(John 1:14).
My mentor, Heb Hodges wrote, “A baby in a crib - and wonder of wonders, the Baby was God! At Bethlehem, He who made man was made man! Here was the greatest case of planned parenthood the world has ever seen! In fact, Jesus was the only person in history who could plan His own birth.”
In the crib, the Most High became the Most Nigh, the Infinite became the Intimate. Amidst the common things of a stable, God came to man and became the God-man. Yet, although He became what He was not previously, He never ceased to be all that He was before, that is God. He was just as much God if He were not man, and just as much man as if He were not God.
The late Johnny Hart designed a comic strip on Sunday, December 21, 1997, that reveals the blindness of the unbeliever in rejecting the foundational truth of the gospel message, i.e. that Mary was supernaturally impregnated by the Spirit of God with the Second Person of the Trinity. This particular “B. C.” comic strip carried a magnificent Gospel message built around this poem:
“It seems to me that since the ‘Fall’ - without even thinking it odd,
That man has had no trouble at all, Believing that he can be God.
How he would do this I cannot conceive, Tho’ he certainly thinks he can.
And yet, he cannot bring himself to believe, That God can become . . . a man.”
Why did He come down at Christmas? “To bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). But before He could bring us to God, another dimension had to be added to the story.
- A Man on a Cross
In the story of Jesus, also, we must continue reading until we have finished the “33-Year” event. With Jesus, the “rest of the story” is the Best of the story. The Virgin Birth was the first historical step toward the Cross. In fact, one theologian phrased the combination of His Birth and His Death in this graphic sentence: “Theologically and spiritually, it is as if Jesus was born in a tomb.” Just as Bethlehem, the place of His Birth, and Jerusalem, the place of His Death, are less than ten miles apart, so His Birth and His Death are very closely connected.
When Jesus was born, He came into fallen humanity, a creation cursed by sin, and though He was personally free of both the sin and the curse, He took both the sin and the curse upon Himself, and passed down into death itself. We cannot now properly celebrate Christmas without realizing the Cross in the midst of it all.
Jesus not only came to us; He also came for us. The word “for” must be translated carefully here. It is a word of sympathy—Jesus is for me (John 3:18). But it is also a word of substitution. Jesus died, “the just in place of the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (I Peter 3:18).
As sinners, we needed more than His company, His example, His sympathy, or His teaching. So “He was delivered over to death for our sins” (Romans 4:25). As a result of His Full Settlement for our sins at Calvary, the holy and just law of God is satisfied, God Himself is propitiated, and I am free to be received into fellowship with my Heavenly Father. What a Gospel! But before it is a full Gospel, still another dimension must be added to the story.
- A Body in a Tomb
1Corinthians 15:3-4, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…”
The burial of the dead body of Jesus was an very important link in the chain of Christian evidences. By His death Christ paid the debt of sin and transgression in full, His burial placed the certainty of His death beyond doubt, and His resurrection on the third day proved the completeness of His redemptive labors. If as much as one sin had not been paid for, as much as one transgression had not been expiated, the resurrection of Christ could not have taken place, the righteousness of God would not have permitted the return to life of Him who had failed in redeeming the world. But His resurrection is a fact, and therefore also our salvation is a fact.
The central fact of the Christian faith is the historical, bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Had it all ended on the Cross there would have been no Good News to share, no bold church to bear witness, no New Testament to teach and preach, and no hope for real life here or in the hereafter. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the Resurrection to our faith.
Again, what a Gospel! But before it is a full Gospel, the 33-Year event needs another dimension added to the story.
- A King on a Throne
1Timothy 3:16, “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”
The Christmas hymn is true, “Bethlehem’s manger cradled a King.”
Philippians 2:9‑11, "Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
His appointment as the King of kings is permanent. His authority is absolute. God's anointed has been appointed and He shall not be disappointed. God has set His King upon the holy hill of Zion. His King is not subject to the voter's ballot, (you can't vote him Lord, he is Lord.), the alluring bribe, (The earth is his and the fullness thereof), nor the assassin's bullet (He has the keys of death and hell on his side).
The first Christmas began when the Second Person of the Trinity came down from the communion of Heaven to a crib in a cattle stall in Bethlehem. Then He went from the crib to the cross. Then from the cross to the crypt. Then from the crypt to the crown. Crib, Cross, Crypt, and Crown. These ingredients, properly mixed, constitute the “33 year” event - a complete Christmas. I hope you stop to adore Him at each one of these places between now and Christmas day. I hope you celebrate a complete Christmas with Christ at the very heart of the celebration.