This phrase bounces around the Christian culture this time of year. It\u2019s the question nearly every Christmas movie silently asks as it depicts the main character focusing for the entirety of the movie on something other than what truly matters\u2014missing the joy of Christmas until the last 15 minutes. The answer to this Christmas struggle varies in each movie, but we know the answer point blank: Jesus. And yet, perhaps this answer oversimplifies the most beautiful story ever born. He\u2019s the reason we celebrate the season\u2014because He loved us enough to come. But this still begs the question: why did we need him to come? What was the original reason for the season?<\/p>\n
The answer is not found in Luke 2, though the beautiful display of God\u2019s love culminates there in those passages, but in order for that baby lying in a manger to hold the power that indeed holds, we have to recognize and understand the before. If this was a movie, we\u2019d have to flashback to the beginning. Yes, the very beginning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were created through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.\u201d<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n (John 1:1-3, ESV)<\/strong><\/p>\n This Word that was there, existing and needing nothing, this Word in which everything that was ever made was created through, this is Jesus. Sometimes we picture him as entering the scene for the very first time in that manger, but that\u2019s not the case, and it truly does change the story. A baby has no control over when he is born or where he is born, but the God of the universe that created that universe and has been rejected and betrayed by those in that universe over and over still to this day? He has every choice, power, and right to not show up. Yet, we know He did.<\/p>\n You know those shows or books when you find out that all along this person truly had this other identity or motive? When you find out, every scene that\u2019s happened before it shifts on its axis. I have to immediately go back and watch or re-read with the knowledge, because now I\u2019m in on the secret. Now, I can go back and look at it with different eyes and read it with the secret identity\u2019s point of view. Everything they did, walked through, heard, sacrificed, for the sake of all leading up to this moment. This story incites that same excitement for me. Jesus was there in the beginning all along\u2014and we have to run back and read it with that in the forefront of our minds.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.\u201d<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n (Genesis 1:1-2, ESV)<\/strong><\/p>\n He was there. Amidst the unformed chaos of what could be. In that moment with darkness and potential mingling together\u2014the potential only existing because He did. So it began. As God began to create, He spoke each creature and creation into existence. As He spoke, the Word was there\u2014and each thing was created through Him. Man, I wish I could know the emotions and the feeling as they created. It\u2019s something I want to ask one day. What was it like?? They move through the days creating light, land, structure, stars, order, gravity, birds, fish, animals of all kinds. It was beauty formed and life given, and we see the heart of the Father in it. Jordan Raynor once said that before we learn anything else about God, \u201cthe first thing God shows us is that He is creative.\u201d<\/p>\n And then the sixth day comes\u2014the day of man.<\/p>\n \u201cThen God said, \u2018Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.\u2019 So God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.\u201d<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n (Genesis 1:26-27; ESV)<\/strong><\/p>\n After this, the Lord blesses them, and then He ends the day calling it very good. Jesus was there, creating, blessing, and loving. He was there calling mankind very good. And we know what\u2019s coming\u2014sin enters the world at our choice, we reach outside of his presence and good limit. Consequences unfold, the biggest being the separation that now stains the once perfect communion we had with the God of the garden who walked and talked with His people. And I always say that as a young person, I pictured the scene of this playing out a little differently than it actually did. I pictured God giving each their consequence and then pointing them towards the door of the garden He\u2019d created for them, since they were no longer fit to dwell there. That was not the reason though.<\/p>\n\n\t\t