“For God so loved the world, that he gave HIS ONLY SON,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”[1]
We know how
significant it is to open a gift and discover what it is. The value we already
place on things determines how we feel about the gift. Sometimes it is the
financial worth of the gift that makes children feel that they must be special.
Other children may struggle to feel appreciation for whatever little things
their parents could afford because it just doesn’t measure up to the kinds of
things they have seen in the commercials.
Whatever the
case with these material gifts, and whatever the true condition of
relationships between the givers and receivers, God has written in his book a
wonderful description of his gift-giving to the world. He gave us “his only Son.”
It might seem
rare for people to ask for a person for Christmas, but it does happen. In our
day, there are families broken up through involvement in the military, through
divorce, or now through the persecution of Christians that leaves loved ones in
prison, or some living in refugee camps while others endure slavery to their
captors. There are many ways that people would much rather have a person show
up as their Christmas gift than anything else they could ask for.
When God
speaks of a love as big as the world, and how this love gave something to the
world, and we tear back the paper to discover that God’s gift to the world was “his only Son,” we have front-row seats
to the most amazing gift that has ever been given.
God’s “only Son” is talking about Jesus. Jesus
came into the world as God’s gift. He fulfilled everything God’s book had
written about this Messiah, this Christ, who would come. God’s gift of his only
Son is talking about Jesus, which is why Christmas is about Christ.
When I think
about how God gave his only Son, it is not as I would give my only son. The
triunity of God is so amazingly revealed to us that when we think of Jesus as
God’s own Son, and we think about God giving his Son, we are seeing a picture
of God giving himself in a way so complex and complete that we cannot find even
a smidgeon of fault in this gift.
God’s book
says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.[2]
This is not as though there is one God who is unseen, and another god who is
his image, and the invisible God makes himself known through the visible god.
It is not as though we are dealing with two absolutely separate and distinct
people, both autonomous from the other, each just doing what they do.
No, this is
about an interaction of oneness that the human mind cannot fathom. God the
Father, and God the Son, are one. They are God. Together they are God. Together
in their Godness they so loved the world. The God-person who gave his Son, and
the God-person who is the Son who was given, so loved the world, that in the
fullness of God, they gave themselves in the most remarkable, loving, way that
anyone could ever do anything loving at all.
In other
words, this is not a picture of God the Father taking the easy way out and giving his Son in his place so that
the Son takes the fall for the whole team. In fact, this isn’t about the Son
taking the fall for God at all. This isn’t about the Son doing something on his
own, or the Father sending his Son out to do the dirty work. Whatever the
Father was giving in his Son, he was giving in himself in ways that we can only
worship.
As we consider
that God giving his Son was an act of giving himself in the most loving way we
could imagine, and in the greatest expression of love the world has ever known,
we come to the central and familiar events of history that we so easily
associate with Christmas.
When we think
of God sending his Son into the world, we are first drawn to the little town of
Bethlehem where Jesus was born of the virgin Mary.[3] We
call up our imaginations to set the scene of an old stable, with the newborn
Jesus laid in a manger.[4] We
picture the shepherds coming as God’s first invited guests to witness the human
birth of his image, his radiance, his imprint, coming as God in the flesh.[5]
As our minds
set the next scene, we see Wise Men, or Magi, coming from the east, following a
star, seeking out this newborn King.[6]
They arrive at the house where the young Jesus was living with his parents, and
they offer him their worship in lavish gifts of their wealth.
These are the
familiar pictures that come to mind when we think of God giving “his only Son.” His Son took on himself
human flesh, entered our world as a real baby. The package was given, and
opened. History is replete with its story, and no more glorious story has ever
been known.
Except that
the whole little town of Bethlehem part of the story was only the beginning of God
giving his gift. In fact, when we read the complete story, it is the small part
of the script because it was just the doorway into what God had given. The next
thirty years would give us something the world had never known since our parents,
Adam and Eve, had enjoyed their short season of innocence. What Adam and Eve
had not been able to preserve in a garden of perfections, Jesus was able to
accomplish in a world surrounding him with sin. His parents were sinners. His
brothers and sisters were sinners. The people he came to where sinners. The
religion of Israel was full of sin. The Roman Empire promoted all manner of
sin. The Greek world view was permeated with sin.
And, in the
midst of a sin-sick world of darkness, the gift of God shone his light for
thirty years before even beginning to speak-out the fullness of the gift.
Thirty years proved that the eternal Son of God had come in the flesh to live a
sinless life because the only way that God could do what his love desired was
through a faultless human being.
Jesus followed
his three decades of maturing as a sinless human being with three years of
clear and precise teaching on the nature of his gift to the world. And then he
walked a very painful path into the fullest expression of this gift ever. He
gave himself as no one had ever done. He literally gave himself up for the
world.
God’s book
describes it like this. It tells us that Jesus, “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age,
according to the will of our God and Father.”[7]
You see that? Jesus gave himself. He did not give himself for himself, but “for our sins.” What he did in giving
himself was “according to the will of our
God and Father,” because “God so
loved the world, that he gave us his only Son.”
The point is
that, in this beautiful verse of John 3:16, when we read that God “gave his only Son,” it means the whole
package, not just the manger, shepherds, magi, and Christmas presents under the
tree. In fact, the Christmas presents under the tree, as much as they delight
our child-hearted little souls, have a painful, sin-stained counterpart in the
true story of Christmas that breaks the hearts of those who hear what Jesus did
for us.
Jesus is God’s
gift. However, he wasn’t put under a tree, but was born under a cross. He was
born for that cross. He was born under assignment from the Triune God, that he
would give himself up for the people God loved, and do something that would
absolutely transform their lives. Other Christmas presents would come and go.
The thrill of the gift opening would turn into the depression of things once again
becoming old, familiar, and replaceable.
In fact, the
world’s idea of Christmas is to tantalize our brains with experiences that send
the chemical-fireworks exploding inside our heads with the very best feelings
we can conspire.[8]
The real meaning of Christmas is about a gift that changes lives forever.
Yes, there is
more on that later. However, for the moment, when you consider that God so
loved the world that he gave us his one and only Son, let your heart marvel at
what the unity of God experienced in giving us this gift, and what they
expressed to us of their love through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
As God’s book
says, “but God shows his love for us in
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[9]
You see, when God describes what it means that he gave us “his only Son,” the birth in a Bethlehem stable is the small part
of the story. It isn’t less significant than the rest; it’s just not the main
point. The God “gave” his only Son,
the gift of God to the world he loved, is mostly about “Christ died for us.”
The point is that, because of the messed-up
condition of this sin-cursed world, the greatest love of the greatest person
could only be expressed in this greatest of gifts, what Jesus himself described
as, “Greater love has no one than this,
that someone lay down his life for his friends.”[10]
There it is,
the intricate, mind-boggling fellowship of the Father and the Son in the gift
we celebrate at Christmas. God the Father gave us his only Son, and God the Son
laid down his life for his friends as the “greater
love," the greatest love the world has ever known.
Which means
that, if Christmas is all about the loving Father giving his only Son to the
world, we best prepare ourselves to have a blessed “About Christ” Day!
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures
are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
John 3:16
[2]
Colossians 1:15
[3]
Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 2:1-7
[4]
Luke 2:7
[5]
Luke 2:8-20; John 1:14; Colossians 2:9; I Timothy 3:16; I John 4:2
[6]
Matthew 2:1-12
[7]
Galatians 1:4
[8]
I refer here to studies on the way our brains express our feelings in chemical
reactions that correspond to both our positive and negative emotions. A big
part of the thrill of opening gifts is the tingly, addictive, stuff that goes
on in our brains. A big part of the let-down after all the gifts are opened, as
I can attest, is because the stimulus for those tingly, addictive,
brain-explosions has stopped, so the fireworks show is over.
[9]
Romans 5:8
[10]
John 15:13
No comments:
Post a Comment