Christmas Day is a day set apart every year to celebrate in a special way the birth of Christ. Even non believers shares the joy of this special Day of Christmas.

How good it is to know we are celebrating not the birth of a principle, but the birth of a Person! I witnessed three years ago, a university professor remarked, 'You have an advantage, in that all the ideas in Christianity are embodied in a Person'. An Indian poet once said, 'The impersonal laid no hold on my heart. It never does, for the human heart is personal and wants a Personal response.'

I love recycling the story of the boy who stood looking at the picture of his absent father and then, turning to his mother, said wishfully, 'I wish father would step out of the picture and hold me in his arms.' That young boy expressed the kind of deep longings felt by the human heart as we stand looking at the picture frame of the universe. We who have gazed at the picture of God in nature are impressed, but not satisfied. We want our Father to step out of the picture and meet us as a Person.

The good news is that the Father has stepped out of the picture. God came down the ladder to meet humanity. This is the meaning of Christmas. Jesus is Immanuel - God with us. We almost gasp as the Person steps out of the picture. We did not dare dream that God would send us His Son. However, he did. Since Jesus 'the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being' ( Hebrews 1:3), we look at the character of Jesus and know what God's characters is like.

The Christmas word can in a sense, become flesh in me. On Christmas Day and on every day, I must tell of Jesus' incarnation and of God's love for us. The Christmas spirit is the Christmas spirit -extended throughout the whole year.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us' (John 1:14). Jesus really did live among us. He resisted the temptation to live in any way other than 'among.'

I once heard a preacher who visited our College 30 years ago. In his sermon , he pointed out that Jesus, during the temptation in the wilderness in (Matthew 4:1-11), illustrates most clearly what it means to be 'among'. The first temptation (he claims) was to live apart from us by using power which was not available to ordinary mortals. This He rejected. He would eat as we eat. The second temptation was to tempt Jesus to live above us. He rejected also. He would not throw Himself down the ladder and then be carried back by angels. That would be living above the rest of humanity. The third temptation was to tempt Jesus to live as we live, by taking the devil's suggestion to worship him, to adopt his methods, and thus gain the kingdoms of the world. He rejected this temptation because although He identified with us in every way, He would not commit sin. He came down the ladder, God's way, not the human way to meet us where we are. In your home, place of work, in the Hospital, Office, College , University, Church etc.

Recently, I have read how an American soldier during the Vietnam war saw a little girl starving. The soldier who had his last meal, decided to offer the little girl his last sandwich. The little girl said 'No', 'your sandwich might be poisoned.' The soldier took a bite and said, ' I take a bite, you take a bite.' She watched him bite off a bit of the sandwich, chew it and swallow it, then did the same.

In a sense, this is what Jesus did with us. The Bible tells us that He tasted death for every one of us (Hebrews 2:9).

However, it is true, also, that He tasted life for every one of us. He asks us to do nothing that He has not done. He knows us from within.




No body knows exactly when Christ was born. However, now we know from some clues of evidence that Christ was born about six years before he was born. This remarkable fact is not due to a major miracle; it is due to a minor miscalculation. The fact that the calculation was made at all is a miracle.

The odd against the particular baby, born in obscurity, becoming so famous must be trillions to one. Nevertheless, it remains true that several hundred years after his death, the village carpenter from Nazareth had become 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. He was so important that the entire calendar was reorganised around his birth. However, his birth was so obscure that they got the date of it wrong!

Christians rejoice in Jesus' humble origins. We also rejoice that it was after his death that he made his tremendous impact on the world outside his own small country. We rejoice, for this convinces us of the reality of the resurrection celebrated at Easter every year.

Roman politicians and historians were not interested in a young carpenter-turned-preacher. They began to sit up and take notice only when the dust started to settle in Jerusalem - and to blow around elsewhere in their empire. This didn't happen until some years after his execution.

It is imperative to note that, in Jesus' humble origins, there's a great deal that we don't know about. We don't know the colour of his eyes; his height and weight; or whether he was good-looking, ugly, or just plain ordinary. Countless artists and film directors have tried to fill that particular vacuum. They have usually come up with some wild suggestions to suit their quest for Jesus but none of them have produced any convincing evidence.

The reason that the date of his birth wasn't recorded and he lived in a small corner of the Roman Empire, it is possible to speculate whether Jesus really existed. Perhaps the followers invented him - though it would be inaccurate to call them 'followers' if they had! I have read some where that, in the Soviet Union, children were taught that Jesus was a second-century invention. He was invented, they said, to account for an early communist movement.

Sensible and honest historians would not accept that for a moment. So Professor W.D. Davis could say, 'The existence of Jesus as a historical figure is not now seriously questioned.' Another well known Christian thinker - C J Cadoux put it even more strongly: 'The idea is quite fantastic, and has not been championed, so far as I know, by any competent historian.'

However, the contention that Jesus wasn't an actual person does surface from time to time (if only in the pub around closing time!), so the need to produce evidence cannot be ducked. This evidence has three separate strands:

Evidence from ancient non-Christian sources

1. A taster from a Jewish historian Josephus AD66
2. The importance of what the Rabbi didn't say AD70
3. The Christian in the Roman Empire AD100.

On the basis of these sources, we do have now on record, and we can be sure of seven facts:

• Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who lived during the rule of Pontius Pilate.
• He was a notable teacher;
• He gained a reputation as a miracle worker;
• Popular opinion about him was divided;
• He offended the authorities;
• He was executed by crucifixion
• His influence grew rapidly after his crucifixion.

© The Case Against Christ by John Young 2006




How would you explain the fundamental difference between Christianity and other religions

What changes should be expected in the lives of those who become Christians and what differences have you personally experienced




Lord Jesus, how glad I am that You know me not just from the outside, but from the inside also. You lived among us. For that I am and shall always be grateful. Amen.