19/12/2025
"If only there were a mediator between us, someone who could bring us together." - Job 9:33 (NLT)
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!" - Luke 2:14 (NKJV)
"But when the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons." - Galatians 4:4-5 (NKJV)
Christmas is approaching and people all over the world are anticipating an opportunity to spend time with family, to have fun, to take a break from their routines and enjoy themselves. For parents and grandparents, there's added stress, of course - the running around to buy last minute presents, stock up on mince pies, ensure the supply of Christmas crackers is plentiful. Christmas is a busy time of year and it comes at a point in the year when, among shortening days and lengthening nights and the accumulated tiredness of a hectic year, our minds and bodies seem less able to cope with the preparation required for it. It's easy to get carried away. It's easy to forget why we're doing this in the first place.
Christmas is about giving, obviously. It's about family, even more obviously. It's about celebration, even more obviously still. It is worth considering, though, just what has been given, into whose family we are being invited, and what exactly we are celebrating.
In the book that bears his name, the uncomfortable story of Job is told. Terrible things have happened to Job and he wants to talk to God about them. He wants an explanation. He wants an opportunity to plead his case. But he can't. And the reason he can't is a legal one. He does not have standing with God. There is no common ground between them, no basis even for a discussion much less an argument. God is holy, unimpeachable, unquestionable. Job, no matter how hard he might try, will always be unclean, always inadequate, always apart (Job 9:30-31). There exists a chasm between him and God which he is incapable of crossing. In Job 9:33, he expresses his predicament in desperate terms: "If only there was a mediator..."
On that first Christmas eve, when the coldly twinkling stars shining down on a band of rough shepherds were outshone by a light which was unearthly and glorious, angels announced the arrival of the one who was to be the mediator for whom Job desperately cried out. The announcement tells us that "peace" has arrived to earth, that "goodwill" has been extended toward men. The chasm has been bridged; the enmity between God and man is at an end; the mediator is here.
The story of Christmas is the story of reconciliation. In the baby in the manger, God was "in Christ reconciling the world to himself". Not content simply to forgive mankind, He has made it possible, through the sacrifice of His son, for those who receive Him to become a part of His family, to "receive... adoption as sons". This is the underlying, the foundational, meaning of Christmas. It is the bedrock on which the tinsel, presents, Christmas movies, celebration and family time are built.
I pray we all have a blessed and peaceful Christmas this year. God bless you and yours.
Love,
Pastor J
