The Crux of the Matter's 2023 Christmas Address
A Reflection on the Christmas Season and an Encouragement for 2024
Video Address:
Transcript*:
Hello everyone. This year, we at the Crux of the Matter wanted to offer a short reflection on the Christmas season, and some encouragement for the year ahead.
The reason that we gather to celebrate this wonderful season is, of course, the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, some two thousand and twenty-three years ago. In all the time from the Fall until the Incarnation, there were many uncertainties that abounded among humanity, but one certainty was that God was not like us. To be sure, all of mankind has been made in God’s image, but since the Fall, we have not been allowed to dwell in his presence. The defining component of God’s nature is that he is “Holy,” or “set apart” from us- not just us, but all of His creation that we have tainted. Nature itself cries out for healing.
And so, God said he would send a Healer- but more than a healer: a deliverer... a Messiah. This Messiah, who God’s people had been expecting ahead of time, was to be many things. Isaiah says that “to us a child is born, to us a son is given,” on whose shoulders the Government rests; who will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.”
This was cause of great excitement among the people of God, who expectantly waited for a glorious King who would overthrow their captors- be they Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans. But God had other plans: Our Lord- the very same Lord who made all of Creation, who walked with Adam in the Garden, who told Noah to build a boat, who called Abraham out from among the nations, who spoke to Moses in the Burning Bush, who stopped the Sun for Joshua, who laid waste to countless thousands, who “sits in the Heavens and laughs and does whatever He pleases;” the One who Reigns over all- this God stooped down to a tiny, mostly insignificant backwater town in the Middle East in the first century. The King dwelt among his subjects, the Necessary among the contingent, the All-powerful among the powerless. And yet, he became only a Carpenter’s son.
The only Being in the whole Universe who could rightfully proclaim his own glory, power, and might forsook even this; becoming the picture of humility: He “did not consider Equality with God a thing to be grasped...” we did not even recognize Him. Worse than this, many reviled him- God’s chosen people could not even recognize their rightful King standing amongst them-teaching them, healing them, rebuking them, loving them- and they condemned him to death. He was betrayed, beaten, bloodied, mocked, and last of all, crucified for the crime of revealing the Truth to us
If this were the whole story, then no one would still talk about Him today. Many emphasize the humble beginnings of Christ in an effort to make him more like us, perhaps at the cost of treating him with the proper reverence. But this is just the trouble with such an approach: He did become like us. We have to do nothing but tell the Truth about Him to communicate this point. His humility and loneliness are not the end of the story.
After His death, a curious thing happened: He rose again. He had defeated opponents that no great conqueror has ever or will ever escape: Death and Hades. And when He rose again, he assigned us roles to carry out his Kingdom on Earth- yes, his Kingdom! Napoleon, the last great conqueror, was said to have remarked that:
“Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him.”
And he was right.
Jesus Christ is both Carpenter and Conqueror, Friend and Father, Healer and King, Man and God. The little Babe in a manger is the King of the Universe, and Mary’s son is your commander for all Eternity.
So go out, fellow Christians, and follow through on what God has asked of you- and the Lord does make demands of you- he says in John chapter 14 that:
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him... If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me” -John 14:21, 23-24.
We all stumble and fall, but if God is our highest love and Jesus our commander, how can we not follow through on what God has asked of us? That is my challenge to you this Christmas, my fellow Christians: go out into the world and call them home to Christ. Have a Merry Christmas. We’ll see you in the New Year.
*Note: This transcript is slightly abridged from the attached video.