Think of the presents under your Christmas tree? What is their origin story?
To the one who receives the gift, the gift springs to life at the moment it is opened.
To the one who purchased the gift, the gift began when it was first seen on the store shelf or online and then purchased for an intended target.
To the store owner, the gift began as an order number before sitting as inventory in a stockroom or warehouse.
To the manufacturer, the gift began as a design that needed to built to a certain specification from raw materials.
To the designer, the gift began as an idea that was then sculpted into reality.
If you were to ask each of these groups of people the origin of their new Lego set, you would potentially get a different answer depending upon who was doing the answering. The gift recipient, gift giver, seller, manufacturer, and inventor all look at this story from different perspectives!
Now, I want to pivot for a moment to take our eyes off what is UNDER the Christmas tree to talk about the origin of Christmas altogether. Christmas is the celebration of the historical account of Jesus coming to earth. But when and where do we begin the origin story of Jesus?
The shepherds and Magi might say that Jesus’ origin story begins in Bethlehem, near the year 5BC.
Mary and Joseph might say that the origin story of Jesus began 9 months earlier when Jesus took up residence in Mary’s womb while she lived in Nazareth.
The angels would say that the origin story of Jesus goes back way, way further, and is truly out of this world. When the angels were created, Jesus was already there, long before our world began.
And God the Father would say that (in fact) there IS NO origin story of Jesus. After all, He always has been!!!!!! Jesus, as a member of the godhead, exists eternally. Quite literally, there has never been a time when Jesus wasn’t. In the time we know of as the beginning, He was already there.
So, the Christmas account does not tell the tale of the BEGINNING of Jesus’ existence, it tells the historical account of how and why He came to earth. This Sunday at Wildwood Community Church, we will be in part 2 of our sermon series, “Christmas Morning: Son rise on a new day” where we will look at Luke 1:26-38. In these verses we will see when Jesus came to earth to begin His incarnation, and what we can learn about the purpose of His coming as a result.
It is going to be a great Sunday! We will gather, sing, dive into God’s Word together, and also have our children sing Christmas songs for us at the end of the later two services! So, make plans to join us in either our 8:30, 9:45, or 11:00 service this week … and bring friends!
P.S. I wrote a 25 day devotional for the Christmas season that you can access here.