Christmas isn’t about babies. Or gifts. Or giving. Or sacrifice. Or thankfulness. Or in songs. Or family. Or tradition.
Christmas is about death.
More specifically, Christmas is about the death of Christ. That is to say, Christmas is about the gospel.
The Christian faith demands clarity about many things. But it demands that we must be supremely clear about the gospel. And in being clear about the gospel, w must be clear about who Christ is (the eternally sinless God-man), what Christ accomplished (He satisfied God’s wrath against sin), what the gospel provides (it imputes Christ’s righteousness to sinners, making them able and desirious of standing in God’s presence), and how one receives the gospel (as a gift of grace apart from any merit or work of man).
But we must also be clear about one more truth of the gospel — man’s need for the gospel. Around the world, men are most likely to presume that while being imperfect, they do not need radical transformation. The engine of their life needs a “tune up,” not an overhaul. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every sinner (i.e., every man) needs a completely new life for the natural man is not merely tainted by sin, but he is completely under its dominion and authority.
So to be clear about the gospel means that we must be clear about sin and man’s need for salvation. In one of his early sermons at Bethlehem Baptist Church, John Piper said it well:
If someone would have given me a guaranteed super-duper mousetrap for Christmas last year, I would have felt very little appreciation. We never had any mice in our old house. If someone gave me a guaranteed-to-catch-’em mousetrap this Christmas, I’d really feel appreciation because now we have got mice and I can’t catch them all. If you offer me a quick ride after service to the emergency room at Metropolitan Medical Center, I’ll think you are strange unless I see the gash in my arm or feel the severe pain in my abdomen. Then I would love you for the offer. If a police car screeches to a stop beside me on my way home from church some night and a man hollers for me to get in, I’ll think he is putting me on unless I see the armed gang lurking ahead around the corner.
And so it is in all of life: we do not appreciate gifts that meet no needs or satisfy no desires. We do not value or love an offer for help unless we know we are sick or endangered by some enemy. Vast numbers of people look upon Jesus and the Christmas story of his coming as a useless mousetrap, a crazy trip to the emergency room, a bothersome pickup by the police, because they don’t know that they have a terminal illness called unforgiven sin, and they don’t believe in the fearful enemy, Satan. For them, the “horn of salvation” is a useless toy. For me, it is my only hope of recovery from this deadly disease of sin that infects my soul and my only protection from Satan, the most dangerous external enemy.
For there is a real and deadly disease. “All have sinned and come short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23). “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). And there is a real and powerful enemy. “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). “He is the god of this world and blinds the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). So there is a deadly disease and an awesome enemy. And every one of us will die from this disease and be devoured by that enemy if there is no horn of salvation for us.
But, “blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us . . . And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.”
These two things make Christmas good news of great joy to all who believe. [“Jesus is the Horn of Salvation”]
Words of Grace 