The first Christmas was God’s intervention in human events with His plan for our salvation–easily the most important event in history. The Light came into the darkness. Christmas led to Christ’s death and resurrection–the once-for-all atonement for our sins. Incredible. It will be surpassed only by Christ’s second coming.
But what would it be like today if God had not intervened, or if Christ had declined to do his Father’s will and take the place of the likes of us? What if there were no Savior, no undeserved grace, no salvation, and no future with God?
Clearly the answers would fill several volumes. On a global/religious level, how would history have been written? Fewer wars? More wars? Science? Kingdoms and nations? Would there be an America? Probably not like anything we would recognize.
I’ve focused this last week on the personal/faith level and asked myself how my life would be if I did not know Christ and his teaching. I don’t even mean actually accepting him as Savior—I just mean what if Christ had never existed, and there were no New Testament for me to even consider. No Light in my darkness.
What if there were no Christ to know about? No teachings to counterbalance the world’s ways. No gospels. No epistles. No hope for eternal salvation. How would I behave?
Thinking how I was before Christ’s Light shone into my life almost thirty years ago, my behavior today would lack the still imperfect grace, patience, humility and love that he has tried to implant in me.
There is so much that I could never be without him. Thank you, Lord, for intervening. Thank you for Christmas.
I hope to celebrate tomorrow not as another annual ritual, but as God’s unexpected intervention to change all of history, and particularly his intervention to change this one unworthy sinner. Thank you.
Comments