The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

The birth of a child produces wonder, astonishment, even adoration.  The birth of Jesus was no different.  Yet, biblical Christianity adds that He was God in human form entering our history.  As Chuck Swindoll summarizes:  “On a rescue mission designed by His Father before time began, Jesus silently slipped into our world, breathed our air, felt our pain, became acquainted with our sorrows, suffered and died for our sins . . . to show us the way out of our darkness and into His glorious light.”

His birth is what we sing about at Christmas.  And, “What Child Is This?” is one of the more popular American Christmas carols.  Written by William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898) and sung to the tune of an English folk tune, “Greensleeves,” it answers two fundamental questions about Jesus: (1) who is He? (verse 1 and the chorus) and (2) what did He come to do (verses 2 and 3)? Answering these questions steers us towards the true meaning of Christmas.

Who is this child?  The Bible declares that God is invisible to us as humans, but, in Jesus, the invisible God became visible.  That is probably why Soren Kierkegaard called Jesus, the “incognito God.”  Consider what the Bible says about Him:  Appearing clandestinely—a “shoot from the stump of Jesse” on whom rested the Spirit of God (Isaiah 11:1-3)—he “had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in appearance that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2).  Yet, in Jesus grace and truth became visible—in His person, His works and His words.  Boldly, He declared that He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).

At Christmas, He came to be with us so that we could spend eternity with Him.  The Creator thus became the creature—a magnanimous, indescribable gift from the heavenly Father (2 Corinthians 9:15).  As ethicist Peter Wehner argues, “The idea that God would become human and dwell among us, in circumstances both humble and humiliating, shattered [all] assumptions” about God.  Indeed, Immanuel (“God with us”) brought hope to this fallen, broken world.  Because He offered hope, the frightened, the ashamed and the guilty are attracted to Him.

The incarnation reveals a divine principle governing the universe—a radical commitment to the dignity and worth of every person.  Because Jesus took on flesh, He entered our world and shared our experiences—love, joy, compassion; anger, sorrow, suffering, tears.  For Christians, God is not distant or detached; He is a God of wounds.  For that reason, we shun turning God into a set of abstract principles.  Indeed, the Gospels detail how Jesus interacted in this messy, complicated, broken world, through actions that stunned the people of His time—and still do so today.

Historian Tom Holland reasons “That every human being possessed an equal dignity was not remotely a self-evident truth.  A Roman would have laughed at it . . . The origin of this principle [lie] not in the French Revolution, nor in the Declaration of Independence, nor in the Enlightenment, but in the Bible.”  And, as Holland also argues, even the ethical standards by which we judge the past are Christ’s standards.  The Greek and Roman gods cared nothing for the poor.  In the ancient world, violence was the right of the strong, and slavery was just a fact of life.  But Jesus championed the poor, repudiated violence, and said He had come “not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  His followers therefore mimic Him in founding hospitals, caring for the poor and, in the past, abolishing slavery.  And as theologian, Rebecca McLaughlin, observes, “Christians today comprise the largest nongovernmental source of poverty relief and anti-human trafficking endeavors in the world today.”

Thus, Christmas is a reminder that while ethical rules can be found on stone tablets, grace and redemption are final and fully found in the story of love—the divine becoming human. I did not enter Jesus’ world; He entered mine. The Incarnation declares that God cares.  As pastor and theologian Tim Keller affirmed, “He is so committed to our ultimate happiness that he was willing to plunge into the greatest depths of suffering himself.”  For that reason, Christians always connect Christmas with Easter, for the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus afforded the path to redemption, reconciliation, renewal and restoration.  We conviction and hope, therefore, we proclaim Merry Christmas!