Good News Pageantry

At this time of year churches mobilize musicians, singers, actors, artists, and readers for Christmas pageantry. The purpose of this recurring, seasonal endeavor is to announce wondrous good news:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Galatians 4:4-5).

God was born human (John 1:14; Philippians 2:5-11).

If Jesus had come to earth as God alone, he could not have shared the limitations of human experience. To be born human and no more, he could not have shattered those limitations.

Only one born with a divine life of infinite value could compensate by his death for the enormity of human sin. Only a human, dying in our place, could bear the punishment for all humankind.

It took the power of an indestructible life for Jesus to be raised from the dead (Hebrews 7:16). It required his bodily resurrection to open the way for every human who believes to receive eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:14-21).

At Christmas we sing, enact, and declare the good news that our incarnate Savior is alive, transforming the world by the power of his redeeming love.

And though this message rings true all year long, particularly in this season we invite persons broken by sin and battered by human ills to believe the good news: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).