The Night That Everything Changed
“Everything changed in an instant” might sound like a cliché straight out of a fiction novel, but in the case of the gospel, it may be an understatement. So often authors must use their gifts of literary art to spin and fluff and create sensational descriptions of events that allow the readers’ minds to create fantastic visual displays of extraordinary occurrences. But it is only in the case of the gospel that the author needs not add anything extra, anything additional, anything sensationalized, or anything dramatized. As we approach Christmas, and with it the recollection of the Christmas Story, I find that people have several reactions to this season and holiday.
Many people dread the Christmas season: the holiday, the joy, the festivities, the “forced merriment,” the commercialization, and many other articles that are associated with this time of year. Be it from past trauma, unresolved grief, open wounds, or likely many other sources of pain. This group often wants to “survive” the season, or “just get through it.”
Another group has lived through past Christmases with anticipation and excitement, but finds themselves more recently lacking. Lacking hope, lacking joy, lacking enthusiasm. Many in this category feel they’ve lost something, something intangible that feels like it was so easy in the past and yet somehow disappeared.
The last group continues to find joy and excitement in the Christmas Story, the reminder of hope renewed and the glory of God abounding. This group enters the Christmas season with anticipation in their hearts, finds joy in their loved ones, and nostalgia in the traditions and routines of the holiday celebrations.
Wherever you are as you read this, whatever group might best describe you, I wonder if your mind can grasp that the Christmas Story is one of the rarest things in all of human history. In a culture that magnifies minor events to create newsworthy buzz, exploits pain and hurt in order to attract readers and listeners alike, and utilizes algorithms to demand and monetize our time and attention… the Christmas Story does none of these things. The story of the birth of a Savior, the Son of God, requires no magnification because it is itself unimaginable, magnificent, and grand. It exploits nothing and asks nothing of you, because it is by its very nature a sacrifice unlike any the world has ever known. And it contains no tricks or algorithms to distract you or divert your attention, because it is a story with no equal; every other story pales in comparison to the glory of God wrapped in flesh and humbling Himself to a human birth in a manger. It is the greatest act of love that an omnipotent God could exact upon us—one we could not ask for, one we do not deserve, and one that rightfully triumphs over every other story our fragile minds can comprehend. And the beauty of all of this is that it is not simply a story, but an account of actual events that changed the shape and the course of all of human history.
The world truly could never be the same again when, for the first and only time, a King stepped out of eternity to humble Himself and save His people. His birth signified the fulfillment of a generations-long plan in which God Himself brought righteousness to an unrighteous people. From the moment that sin entered into humanity, distance had existed in the relationship between man and God. For thousands of years, mankind had lived in the defilement of sin, incapable of removing it ourselves, and unable to live according to the holy laws God provided to guide us away from it. Lost in our own defilement, the birth of Christ on a dark night in a small town in an occupied country some two thousand years ago brought an indistinguishable light into thousands of years of darkness and separation. Hope became visible and tangible, the glory of God filled a stable in that distant town of Bethlehem, and the world would truly and unequivocally never be the same again. This season is an intentional time for us to recall, remember, and focus our time and attention on what truly matters—a night in which everything changed.
