Christmas!

Christmas is amazing! There is just so much I love about it, the chance to spend time with friends and family, fantastic food, especially mince pies, singing carols, Christmas trees and the classic Christmas movies we watch again and again, but most of all I love what it means for me as a Christian.

The idea that Jesus loves us so much, that he leaves heaven to come down to first century Palestine, to live and die and then be raised to life again as a man in order that we might be reconciled to God is just mind blowing! Christmas is the story of God getting his hands dirty, serving the people he created and bringing with him the Kingdom of God as he heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, teaches incredible, life changing truth and raises the dead.

Christmas is about the God who created the universe stretching out his hand and offering it us, offering us life and salvation, offering us the chance to start over without the guilt of our wrongdoing hanging over us. But it is even bigger than that, bigger than you or me. Jesus birth is the beginning of the end for death, suffering and pain- it is God starting to restore all the things we have messed up. This is the hope of Christmas.

One of the first Christian songs of praise, found in Philipians 2, sums up just what is so special about the Christmas celebrations....

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Have an amazing, hope-filled Christmas