“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making His appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)
Christmas is Christmas in retrospect. It is what it has become only because of that little, special baby and what He became. He grew into the greatest gift anyone and everyone has ever received. He became the light of the world. His life, His death, His resurrected presence provides the sweetest music this side of heaven. He took our nature upon Himself and is the supreme model of what we all can and should be and the glorious revelation of what God is like. How marvelous His teaching and insights, how perfect and pure His matchless love, how awesome His sacrifice, how saving is His defeat of death and despair. And we have the audacity to adopt His name and to profess to walk in His footsteps! We come to Christmas sensing with every fiber of our beings that this Christ is no trickster, no phoney, no faker. He is indeed for real! Christmas is no hoax perpetrated by a capricious God. So we move beyond the shadows of our doubts; we see ourselves, in the light of His life, for what we are, yet what we also may become.
-- Don G. Smith, Lorne Park Baptist Church, Mississauga, Ontario, December 7, 1985
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