Christmas time is generally child-friendly in the UK. We have chocolate calendars, Cliff Richard’s music, Christmas tree fairies, Macaulay Culkin’s films and Santa Claus. In Carol Services, everyone loves having the kids on show doing the nativity drama.
I was thinking the other day about the real message of Christmas, which in many ways is anything but child-friendly. The nativity, although a lovely scene, isn’t the complete message of Christmas. Far from it. Christmas points to Easter for Christians, the birth of the Lord Jesus is in fact a pointer to his death. The Saviour comes into this world in the nativity. But he can only save us through his death on the cross.
Imagine an Easter ‘Nativity’ scene. There would be no baby Jesus, no manger and no smiling wise men with gifts. The baby Jesus has grown up! There’d be a full grown man with a beard, beaten and bruised, a crown of thorns, a wooden cross and an empty tomb. A brutal death instead of a cute birth.
The Bible calls this ‘good news of great joy’. Why? Because through the perfect life of Jesus, every human being who has rejected God (that’s all of us) can be forgiven and can begin a relationship with him. All of our wrong is exchanged for Jesus’ perfection, so God can see us as perfect. The relationship we were meant for can begin. And that my friends, is the greatest news in the world.
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