A Christmas Meditation

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son…” Galatians 4:4

Every December we wade through a swirl of messages—gift-giving, family traditions, warm feelings, winter nostalgia. None of these are wrong, but none of them reveal the heart of Christmas. Scripture does.

Spurgeon reverently musing on this verse wrote: “The birth of Jesus is the grandest light of history, the sun in the heavens of all time. It is the pole-star of human destiny, the hinge of chronology, the meeting-place of the waters of the past and the future.”

Before the world began, God had written our salvation—and at Christmas, that eternal plan entered history. God came out of timelessness into time for our sake. Thus Christ is the pole-star of human destiny. His birth is the fixed point by which we navigate our existence. In him all things hold together. 

God is eternal—we are temporal, bound by time. Yet the eternal God bridged the gap between His divine reality and our fallen experience. 

The Creator comes to His creation. A.W. Tozer described the vast gulf between God and everything that is not God—yet Christ crossed that gulf. God once walked with humanity in Eden, but sin drove us from His presence. At Christmas, through a child, God dwelt among His people again.

Jesus tabernacled among us so that, after His work was finished, His Spirit might live within us. Making us sons and daughters of God in Christ. Christmas is the story of Immanuel—God with us.

So as we celebrate this season, let’s not be distracted by its lesser lights. When we read the story of Christ’s birth, may we see the culmination of God’s eternal plan, the bridge between His holiness and our humanity, and the love that moved Him to cross that infinite distance for us.

This—God’s love revealed in His Son—is the true meaning of Christmas.