I recently received some Christmas cards in the post. It’s such a novelty because receiving actual post which isn’t a shopping item or bills is unusual. I enjoyed checking the postmark and looking at the handwriting to figure out who had sent it. The anticipation of opening a card from someone I’ve not seen in months forms part of the excitement! 

Also, you know it can’t be a bill or something official if you’re called by something other than the name on your birth certificate. Depending on who has sent the card, you could have different name or titles. For some, it will be Mum, Mammy, or Gran, Granny, Pops or Grandpa or Wee Sis or Squirt, or that nickname from school you couldn’t shake in college. Perhaps it gives away your job such as Miss or teacher!

Interestingly neither Mary nor Joseph decided what Jesus should be called. The angel told them to call him Jesus because he will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1 v21), and in a few verses later He will be called Emmanuel which means God with us. 

If Christmas were just about celebrating babies we could celebrate every day of the year in maternity hospitals all around the country. Instead, it’s a miracle birth, a baby born to a virgin! Totally unheard of!  A very special divine baby,  Jesus-Son of God. The baby whom shepherds came to worship, Wise Men honoured and King Herod tried to kill.

Into our world

I used to love watching Morph as a child. You know the clay figure who communicated with grunts and squeaks but could change shape by squashing down flat and then rising up again in a different place or different shape.  I used to try and copy it, but I wasn’t actually patient enough to complete a sequence of meaningful actions with clay.

But imagine if I had been able to not just make my clay figures, but to bring them to life. Of course, I’d want to communicate with them, and lay out plans on how they should behave in this world I’d made. But what if they wouldn’t listen, and they messed up the world I had made? And despite sending messages they refused to listen to me.

Well maybe I could make myself into one of them? I’d enter their world as a clay baby (anything else, I’d be too powerful and scary).  I’d still be me of course, but I’d live and talk and grow just like them, and finally I’d sacrifice myself in their world so that one day they could enter mine.

My story is just make believe of course. But God has done something on an even greater scale. He did come into the world He had made. He is called Emmanuel – God with us, and Jesus – to save us from our sins. 

How can “God with us” make a difference in my life?

What does it matter that Jesus is born? 

Can it be more than an excuse for a knees up, a holiday off work, and something to brighten the dark winter days?

It’s God with us in a hospital bed or at the graveside of a loved one. It’s God with us as we write a shopping list not sure how to afford everything on it. It’s God with us when the once full house empties, or the baby takes their first steps. It’s God with us when we sit in exams, or pace to and fro waiting for results. It's God with us when evil seems to flourish and all hope seems gone. It’s God with us as we gaze at the empty chair this Christmas.  

It may make you wonder if God is with us, then why has this year been so difficult? Christmas reminds us that God is not remote and far off. In fact he’s the opposite. He knows what it’s like to live in this world with pain and sorrow. He knows what it’s like to be tired and hungry, to grieve and be sorrowful. And he knows better than any of us what it is to face death. His coming at Christmas was in order that He would fulfil the plan of dying on the Cross to bring people to the Father. This would change the future of individuals, families, and nations forever.

This is where our real hope lies. I’m glad to see shops open again and experience the buzz of being outside of home and workplaces! But if my only hope is for my immediate future, I’m not thinking big enough. Jesus offers forgiveness of sin and a new way of living in relationship with God through His Son.  It’s hope of an eternity spent with God, with someone who loved me enough to leave the glory of heaven and be born into my world. Someone who knows all about me and came all the same. That life with Him can be different, better and more abundant than I’ve ever imagined.

Can I suggest that to help you think on this more deeply you listen again to Christmas carols this year? Singing aloud in churches is not permitted this year, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t sing at home. I’ve included some modern hymns which can accompany the traditional favourites. 

O come all you unfaithful by Sovereign Grace Music 

Mary, Did you know? Pentatonix 

Hope was born this night by the sidewalk Prophets 

Oh what a glorious night by the sidewalk Prophets