The Father Gives Us The Two Greatest Gifts We Could Ever Have This Christmas

12.25.2022 Galatians 4:4–7

4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to shout, “Abba, Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if you are a son, then you are also an heir of God through Christ.

The Father Gives Us the Two Greatest Gifts We Could Ever Have This Christmas

The time has come! After all of the hype, the shopping, the music, it’s finally here. It’s Christmas! Christmas brings travel for many people. The further you have to travel, the more challenging it can be. Plane flights can be canceled. Cars can break down or get caught in bad weather. When Logan went to Germany a while back, we were concerned about a short layover in England and then whether he’d be let into Germany with their Covid restrictions. It was nerve wracking to say the least. I was very thankful when his future father in law sent me a picture of him having arrived safe and sound.

Today we celebrate the sending and arrival of a different Son, God’s Son. You could almost say it was into another dimension, much more dangerous and much longer than getting on a plane. He came into the world of flesh through the womb of a woman. God sent his Son to be born of a woman. This is different from the birth of any other child, because Jesus existed BEFORE He took on flesh. As John 1 says, In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God. God the Father, in cooperation with the Son, decided to send Jesus into our world. Coming through the womb of a woman is no easy task. Think about sitting on an airplane for a 15 hour flight. You can get up and stretch your legs. Think about being bound inside the womb of a woman for nine months. Think about being born in a cattle stall without any midwives or doctors or medicines on hand. We don’t like driving a few hours through wind and snow. Jesus went through so much more than this in order to enter our world and become one of us.

Jesus was born “of a woman.” Why doesn’t Paul mention Mary’s name? Maybe the Holy Spirit was guarding against what would happen with Mary within Catholicism by not naming her. But from a positive aspect, perhaps it shows us how integral women were to the salvation plan of God. God Himself chose to come into a woman’s womb to enter our world. This whole promise was made all the way back in the Garden of Eden, through a woman. Women were to be the pipeline through which life and light entered our world. Christmas comes with the blessings of pregnancy and childbirth. It’s a shame that our world doesn’t look at pregnancy and childbirth that way.

Why did the Father send the Son into our world this way? so that he would be born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons. Think about this from a purely physical perspective. Jesus suddenly would bind Himself to the laws of gravity and time and space. Even though He could walk on water and float through the air, most often He’d walk and eat and sleep and drink like all of us do. He’d have to do this from birth. This was more than a 2 year project. It was a lifelong project for Jesus, from CONCEPTION.

Take it a step deeper, from a spiritual perspective. Jesus more importantly put Himself under the law that God gave to humanity and to the Jews. When a young adult has to move back in with his parents after a time, it is difficult to put himself under the rules of the parents, being home at a certain time and keeping the music down, making the bed and not leaving a mess. When an adult gets really old, his children then have to become the parents and tell their own parents what to do. They don’t often like that too much. It’s not easy. Then think of Jesus. I wouldn’t doubt for a minute that Jesus helped on a regular basis with Joseph’s carpentry work. When His parents told Him to go to bed, He had to go to bed, even when He wasn’t tired. When it came time for the Sabbath, He would go to the synagogue and study the Bible that He was an integral part of. When they demanded taxes, Jesus would pay taxes, even to a government that ended up putting Him to death unjustly. When the disciples needed their feet washed, He would put on the towel and wash them Himself. Jesus would constantly have needy people coming to Him for help and healing. His schedule was bound by the needs of those around Him, under the law of love. He did all this while limiting Himself to having human amounts of energy and strength, so He got TIRED from it all.