Christmas normally involves travel, as families get
together - but not this year! Not
so many will be driving home for Christmas in 2020 as a consequence of the
social restrictions due to the pandemic.
Many people were travelling the first Christmas. Pregnant
Mary and her husband Joseph walked 90 miles over the hills to reach Bethlehem.
Many others like them were travelling because the Roman census required them to
return to their ancestral towns to register. Some shepherds travelled a much
shorter distance from the fields outside Bethlehem to see a baby wrapped in
cloths and lying in a manger, whose birth had been announced to them by
angels! The Magi (wise men) came many hundreds of miles, possibly on
camels, as they followed a strange star in order to give presents to a new-born
king.
But
the person who travelled the furthest that first Christmas was the baby in the
manger. The distance he came isn’t measured in miles, but in the extreme
humbling of himself. He came from heaven to earth, from eternity to time,
from splendour to squalor. Because Mary’s firstborn son, Jesus, is none
other than God the Son who has taken on a human nature, alongside his existing
divine nature. He comes to earth through the womb of Mary to identify with us and to sympathize with us in our sufferings. But
more than that, he came to offer us full forgiveness for all our wrongdoing, to
reconcile us to God, and to give us hope for eternity. But that required
an even greater humiliation. 33 years or so after his birth, Jesus endures the
anguish and the shame of the cross in order to be humanity’s Saviour and to
accomplish the purpose for which he came to Bethlehem.
Let’s focus on the miracle of the Christmas – God the Son
comes from heaven to earth to take us from earth to heaven, as we trust in him.
This is the good news of great joy announced by the angels - the greatest
Christmas gift ever!
David
David Magowan
Co-Pastor
Carey Baptist Church, Reading
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