The greatest news ever received is contained in one of the best-known verses of the Bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
We do not know the exact day or the exact year when Christ came into the world. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. What matters is that every year we try to recapture the love and wonder and hope and joy that were born in human hearts when God Himself came into the world to share the mystery and miracle of life with human beings—and to offer them a place in His own eternal kingdom. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Throughout all the preceding centuries, as the Bible relates, God had tried every other way to get through to man. He sent angels; He spoke through prophets; He made great promises to men like Abraham and Isaac; He revealed Himself to Moses. Yet it was almost as if the concept of God revealed in all these ways was too overwhelming for the average man to understand. So God said to Himself: “I’ll send them something so simple, so natural, so lovable that even the densest, the least attentive, the most indifferent will be able to understand. This time I’ll send them a baby.” And in the form of a baby God laid Himself on the doorstep of the world. “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel which means ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23).
And the heart of the world responded to a baby’s low cry. So that baby, who was also King and Savior of the world, was born in a stable in a little town called Bethlehem—and the world has never been the same since.
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