Christmas Truth - Day 1

Well it happened again this year, thankfully. It has happened every year right around this time of year since I can remember and i've been happy to see it come each time. I am speaking of A Charlie Brown Christmas, of course. I watched a really nice cartoon with my wife and children, which is always time well spent. Something new occurred to me this year, however, that spurred my thinking and inspired me to a series of posts which will be forthcoming in the days leading up to Christmas day. The central theme of the cartoon was the real meaning of Christmas, something that is missed by the vast majority of Americans each and every year. Critical to answering the question about the real meaning of Christmas is truth.

Truth is correspondence. By that I mean that we know that something is true because it corresponds to reality. If I were to say that I am 6'-4" tall with dark hair, you would know that to be true by investigating those measurable attributes and comparing them to my statement. If my statements correspond to the real measurements, then my statement is truthful. This is critical to those of us who are followers of Christ because we don't follow His teaching because they make us feel good, or because we like most of what He says, or because our family always has; we follow Christ because we believe His teaching to be true. Due to that belief, we find the joy of the Lord that gives us comfort no matter the circumstance, we find the knowledge that the Lord will do what is right and can appreciate even the hard parts of His teaching, and we can appreciate the blessings that our progenitors have passed on to us.

So what is true this Christmas? Jesus says in John 14:6-7 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Jesus is the truth. God has given us the privilege of providing the truth in the form of the Word that we can measure against reality. John 1:1-2 says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning."

These two scriptures point to the first truth i'd like to bring out, and that is the doctrine of the Trinity. The more I study and think about the Trinity the more beautiful a concept it becomes in my heart. Jesus claims to be God, not a mere man, not just a great teacher, but God. We see from scripture the concept of the triune nature of God (namely God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit). The first four words in the Bible say "In the beginning God...". The reality is that this universe is finite, and no matter the circumstances surrounding it's propagation the beginning was a caused event. The explanation that best fits reality is that the caused event of creation is due to God, the uncaused agent. Also, creation (which includes mankind) is the choice of the Creator. Because God exists eternally in three persons, He didn't need to create us for company. We need not think too highly of ourselves. There was unity in diversity from eternity in the community of the Trinity. We are created in God's image so it comes as no surprise that each one of us desires to be a part of a community. Companionship, support groups, families, gatherings of all kinds reflect the reality of the Trinity in each of our image-bearing attributes. Loneliness is always considered a bad thing, because it opposes the truth of the community.

When Jesus was ready to begin His earthly ministry we read in Luke 4:14-21 that He went to the synagogue and opened the scroll of Isaiah and He read, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has annointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, 'Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing'." Jesus said that He was the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning the Messiah.

In the life of Christ (that is, His birth, life, death and resurrection) represents a fulfillment of several hundred Old Testaments prophecies. I thought it would be a good idea to bring just a few of these to bear at this time to remind us that Christianity is not just a fanciful notion, but the TRUTH. Lord willing, tomorrow I will post on the fulfilled prophecy of the family line of Jesse.