What Are We Celebrating This Christmas?

This Christmas we are not just celebrating the birth of a baby. We are celebrating that, of course, but we are also, and more importantly, celebrating all this baby would become. So what all would He become?  I’ve made a short list.  You may be able to think of more.

According to Scripture, this baby Jesus would become . . .

• A child destined to cause the falling and rising of many and a sign spoken against so that the thoughts of many hearts would be revealed.
• A boy who at age 12 engaged the teachers of the law in the temple courts and amazed them with his understandings and answers.
• A man who was tempted by the devil himself for forty days.
• A man who taught in the Jewish synagogues and everyone praised him until one day He unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah read from Isaiah 61:1-2 and astonishingly everyone there by proclaimed “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
• A man who called together his first disciples.
• A man who performed miraculous feats and taught revolutionary messages.
• A man who threatened the very integrity of the Jewish religion.
• A man who was hated and condemned to die on the cross.
• A man who spent three days and three nights in the hadean realm of the dead and preached to the spirits held captive there.
• A man who was raised from the dead and brought the bodies of many holy people out with him (Matt. 27:51-53).
• A crucified dead man who appeared alive many times following his resurrection.
• A man who ascended up into a cloud in front of his disciples and into heaven.
• A man who sent back the Holy Spirit to earth in a new way.
• A man who came and appeared to Saul/Paul on the road and blinded him and convert him.
• A man who came on the clouds in age-ending destruction and removal of the Old Covenant, animal sacrifice system in perfect fulfillment of all end-time prophecies (Old and New Testament).
• A man who no longer is the earth-bound, historical Jesus we have come to know and love and most people on earth today celebrate every year as a baby.
• Now, He is the ascended, exalted, glorified, transformed, transfigured, transcendent, apocalyptic, crowned, and cosmic Christ unveiled in the Bible’s last book of Revelation.
• He is the Christ who is active and involved with his creation, here and now and in apocalyptically revealed ways – some you do not want to have happen to you.
• He is the Christ in the great cloud of witnesses that presently surrounds us all around the world (see Heb. 12:1, 22-24)
• This is the Christ who not only saves us but also indwells us, strengthens us, guides us, and empowers us.
• This is the gloried, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent greater Jesus
• Indeed, He is a much greater than many of us have been led to believe.
• Simply put the concept of Jesus as a babe in a manger is out-of-date and inadequate. He’s not like that anymore!
• It’s the birth of this greater Jesus we celebrate this Christmas season. Amen?
• Any thoughts or comments ???