2 Timothy 1:16

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

Christmas matters because life is precious to the God who is life, gives life, and loves life.

Why Christmas? Reviewing the Series

For the last two weeks leading up to today, we have been looking at this question: why Christmas? Even people who don't read the Bible or go to church can answer some questions about it. Ask them why we celebrate Christmas, and many will eventually say something about Jesus, something about Christ. They recognize that his birth is what we're celebrating.

But when you press a little further and ask, what was the point of his birth? Why did he come, and why is it important?—many people, both inside and outside the church, don't know the answer. That's what this series has sought to address.

The World Is Broken

To really grasp why Christmas is necessary, we have to go back to the beginning of the Bible, to Genesis, and consider that we live in a broken world. In the beginning, the gift-giving God created a good creation. Everything seen and unseen, he spoke into existence. He spoke light into being, formed the earth into mountains and waters, filled the seas with creatures, the land with beasts, and the air with birds.

Ultimately, God made man. He formed him of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. God placed him in a garden of trees pleasant to the eyes and good for food. Then, seeing that it was not good for man to be alone, God formed the first woman and brought her to man as a gift, a helper compatible to him.

God gave one commandment in Genesis 2:17: of all the trees you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die. Understand that this death was not merely a punishment for disobedience—it was the result of partaking of that tree.

In Genesis 3, the serpent brought deception. He introduced a question into the heart of humanity: Is God really a gift-giving God? Is he withholding something good from you? Many falls toward sin still come from that thinking—this person, or God, is holding me back from what would really be good. So the woman saw that the tree was pleasant, desirable, and able to make her wise; she ate, gave to her husband, and he ate also. Their eyes were opened, and the curse came. The world is broken.

We all recognize this. We see it in the news, on the internet, in our daily lives. The idea that the world is broken is not in conflict with anything we observe.

God Is a Gift-Giving God

The second thing we considered last week is that God is a gift-giving God. Being good, when he looked upon his now-broken creation, he knew the perfect resolution—the perfect gift. He had a day and a way to address the brokenness, a day that was yet future when Genesis 1, 2, and 3 were happening.

Throughout the Old Testament, God gives hints about that coming gift. Like any good gift giver who wants the gift received, he gives clues—and those clues are prophecy. We considered a number of them last week.

But here is a question worth asking. The brokenness of this world is the result of man's failure. So why would God even care? Why not say, You broke it, you deal with it? Honestly, that would probably be our attitude—and it's a very good thing we're not God. In fact, every world religion other than Christianity is man's attempt to fix the brokenness in his own strength. But the Bible reveals something different. Why does God care? Because to God, life is precious.

Life Is Precious

The preciousness of life is apparent to every one of us. Humanity desires to live on. Billy Graham often said that one of the basic desires of the soul is to live on. Even when we grow tired of the pains and aches of life, we never grow tired of life itself.

Yet every one of us lives under the shadow of our own personal apocalypse—the recognition that a day is coming. You can probably remember the first time you sensed this, perhaps as a child when a grandparent died. Death, when you read Genesis, is a foreign agent in this world; it wasn't what God intended. As children we were told strange things—grandma fell asleep or she's gone to the man upstairs—and we began to recognize our mortality.

We don't like to think about that. This is why many find it hard to attend funerals or visit the sick—they don't want to be confronted with a reality that reminds them of their own death. Every philosophy, every worldview, every faith—even faith in science, with its attempts to cure death—is in some way trying to address this reality. Why? Because life is precious. And life is precious to us because it is precious to God.

God Is Life, Gives Life, and Loves Life

The preciousness of life comes from God who created us in his image. He is the source, the wellspring of life. John 5:26 says that in the Father is life. He breathed into man the breath of life. Without God, there is no life.

Sadly, many don't recognize this. For centuries science has tried, by its own power, to make life ex nihilo—out of nothing—and it has never succeeded and never will, because God alone is the source of life.

God loves life so much that he gave man two commandments revealing how to bring forth life and how to keep it. In Genesis 1:27–28, after creating man male and female, he blessed them and said, Be fruitful and multiply—that is how you perpetuate life. And in Genesis 2:17 he taught man how to maintain life: do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or you will bring death.

God is holy and completely pro-life. Death is a foreign agent introduced through the fall. In Romans 5:12, Paul tells us that through one man's sin, death entered the world and spread to all mankind. Because of failure in the garden, death spread like an infection to all humanity. The world is clearly broken, but God is life, gives life, loves life, and is completely pro-life.

Why God Withheld the Tree of Life

In Genesis 2, two trees are named. One we know—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which brought death. But in the same verse, Genesis 2:9, another is named: the tree of life, which apparently would extend life—the elixir, the fountain of youth people have always sought.

So here is the question: if God loves life so much, why didn't he immediately introduce the tree of life after the fall? The answer is in Genesis 3:22. God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever—therefore God sent him out of the garden and placed a cherubim with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

Some think Adam and Eve were expelled as punishment, like a father throwing them out of the house. But that's not what's happening. In mercy and grace, God removed them from the tree of life. Had man partaken of it, he would have lived forever in this broken state, in this broken world. It is not God's design or desire for humanity to live forever in a broken world. And I agree with that.

Some people are very interested in living forever here—spending fortunes to be cryogenically frozen, hoping science will one day thaw them and bring them back. But while life is beautiful, this broken world holds terrible realities. I don't want to live forever in this broken state, and that is not God's desire. God's design is for us to live the abundant life forever. The fall brought death, but the life-loving, gift-giving God had a plan to restore life—because life is precious.

The Word Became Flesh

The Bible begins, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. John's Gospel begins similarly: In 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 made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

This may seem confusing, because Scripture also reveals that God is one (Deuteronomy 6). Yet Genesis says, Let us make man in our image, and the man has become like us. John 1 reveals the other side of this: there is one God who exists in three persons—the Father, the Son (the Word, whom we know as Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. This is the doctrine of the Trinity. The Word was in the beginning, life was in him, and he is the source of life.

John 1 then tells of John the Baptist, sent to bear witness of the light, that all might believe. The light was in the world, the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God.

Then comes verse 14—put a star next to it: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The very life of God came in the flesh among us.

The Fulfillment of Every Prophecy

This is the fulfillment of all those hints we considered last week. God promised in Genesis 3:15 a man, the offspring of a woman, who would destroy the dominion of the serpent. Genesis 12 said he would come through Abraham; Genesis 17, through Isaac; Genesis 25, through Jacob; Genesis 49, through Judah. Second Samuel 7 added that he would come from the royal line of King David. Micah 5:2 said he would be born in Bethlehem; Isaiah 7:14, of a virgin. And Isaiah 9 gave those words we see on Christmas cards: For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given… and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Why did he come? Because God is life, gives life, and loves life, and the fall brought death. Life is so precious that Ezekiel 33 says God does not delight in the death of the wicked, and 2 Peter 3:9 says he is not willing that any should perish. God himself came as a man to bring forth life, in Jesus Christ—the son born in Bethlehem, the child born to the virgin.

John continues in 1:15–17: John the Baptist bore witness, crying, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me. He is eternal. The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The prophecies have been fulfilled in his coming, which we celebrate every December 25th—even though that is likely not the actual day of his birth.

Lifted Up That We Might Have Life

Turn to John 3. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness (Numbers 21), so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God created us to live; that is why we so desire to live on. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Twice in two verses we read that God did not want man to perish. Verse 36 says, He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. And in John 10, Jesus said, The thief has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy, but I have come to give life, and that more abundantly.

He Abolished Death

Turn to 2 Timothy. Paul wrote this final letter in the mid-to-late 60s A.D. from a Roman prison, awaiting execution for faithfully preaching the gospel. Timothy, the pastor Paul had raised up, was fearful of persecution. So Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:8, Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling according to his own purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before time began.

Then verse 10: this grace has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. The gift-giving God, who had the answer before time began, sent the perfect gift, prophesied by the prophets, who came 2,000 years ago on the day we call Christmas—for the express purpose of bringing life to those who were dead.

Made Alive Together with Christ

One last passage: Ephesians 2. Paul writes to believers, And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world… and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you are saved.

He raised us up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus—that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For eternity, God will be revealing to us the wealth of his grace, the riches of his great gift-giving.

This is God's plan. Death is a foreign agent, and because life is precious, God addressed it through the coming of Jesus Christ. Christmas is about his coming to do exactly that. Yes, Jesus is the reason for the season—and yet many who know that saying do not know these truths. May we who do know them carry the good news to others: that life and immortality are found in Jesus Christ.

Closing Prayer

Father, thank you that you are the great gift giver, and that although the world is broken because of sin, because of the failure of humanity through deception, you love life. Life is so precious to you that you want us who are dead in sin to know life. You are not willing that any should perish. God, impress that upon our hearts, that even people we may not like, we would not want to see them experience death eternally. Help us never to delight in the death of any, but to desire that life would go forth.

Lord, there may be some in this room who have not yet laid hold of that life by freely receiving the gift of your grace. Draw them to yourself by your Spirit, that they would come to know that gift, that abundant and eternal life. And make me a conduit of the good news as I celebrate this holiday season with friends, family, and people who do not yet know you. Help me to be a conduit of your good news. In Jesus' name, Amen.