The Cross of Christmas

SCOTT BLAKEY

Think of it. That blessed night in Bethlehem has become such a well-known, oft-told story, we sometimes forget the full meaning of that night—why this seemingly humble birth became the dividing line of history. 

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The night on which we look back was looked forward to—was longed for—for centuries, millennia even. In reality, the birth story has become too comfortable for many of us; we have romanticized and mythologized it to the point of robbing it of its full meaning, ignorant of what led up to it and uncomfortable with where this precious life was heading. This is truly a great day to celebrate—God has come to His people in human flesh! But over this day hangs the knowledge of another day, the long, difficult day that would end this life, but that would ultimately open the door for an even greater celebration.

Some History Behind That Historic Night

In earliest human history, on the tragic day mankind fell into sin in the Garden, God gives us the first promise of salvation, the first hint of who this Savior would be. As He curses the serpent for his part in the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, He gives this cryptic pronouncement;

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel (Gen. 3:15).

And so the rest of Old Testament history becomes the story of waiting for and anticipation of this promised “serpent-crusher.” (Indeed, in the phrase “her seed,” we also get our first hint of the virgin birth.) 

Centuries later, God would give another great promise related to this coming One. In making His covenant with Abraham, the Lord proclaimed, “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, prophesied of his son, Judah; 

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples (Gen. 49:10).

Thus, in these promises to Abraham and Judah, we have the specific family and tribe from which this promised Savior would come, who is now identified as a ruler over all people. Interestingly, the name given him here, “Shiloh,” shares its root with “shalom,” the Hebrew word for “peace.” The one Israel longed for would not only be the serpent-crusher, but a peace-giver as well.

This “royal” promise to Judah, however, would not be fulfilled until over 600 hundred years later, when David would take the throne. Altogether, in fact, there would be over 2,000 years between the promise to Abraham and the arrival of the Promised One (and millennia more if we go all the way back to the original promise in Eden); there is little wonder, then, that a repeated cry of God’s people over those centuries was, “How long, O Lord?” More would be revealed about the coming one when God made a covenant with David, including the promise; “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever, your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:16). While the full meaning of this promise may not have been apparent to David, it clearly points ahead to the One whose reign will never end, who does sit on the eternal throne (Rev. 22:3).

Other details are given throughout Old Testament history and prophecy. Micah tells us Messiah will be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2). In Numbers 24:17, we read “a star shall come forth from Jacob” to announce the Savior’s birth. Jeremiah tells of the “new covenant” God will make through this One, through whom He “will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jer. 31:34). Most amazingly, Isaiah (harkening back to the promised seed of the woman in Genesis 3) makes his most well-known prophecy; 

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14).

So the centuries passed, with more pieces of the puzzle being added, and with the patience and faith of the Israelites being tested. They wandered in the wilderness with Moses, triumphantly entered the Promised Land with Joshua, saw their nation slide into disobedience in the days of the judges and then rise to great prominence and enter a Golden Age under Saul, David and Solomon. They saw that great nation split, with ten tribes taken into captivity by Assyria never to return, and Judah taken by Babylon and brought back home as part of God’s faithful promise to David. They saw Rome come in and conquer and rule over them. And this became the time of which Paul wrote; 

But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal. 4:4-5).

The Angels Proclaim Good News!

All of history comes together then in the (seemingly) insignificant town of Bethlehem, taxed to its limit by the Roman decree that has brought the Jews—and most significantly, Mary and Joseph—to the towns of their forefathers to be counted for the census.

In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flocks by night (Luke 2:8). 

Did the shepherds have in mind that night all of God’s promises about the coming Messiah, the One who would come to save and rule over all people? We do not know, but it is not hard for us to imagine that their thoughts were on much more immediate, mundane concerns. What we cannot imagine is the terrifying shock of the sudden appearance of angels and the glory of God before them! Their fears are allayed by the gentle and joyous news they hear; 

“Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:10-14).

And thus did God keep all His promises—and keep His great promise. This descendant of David (and Judah, and Abraham, and Adam) has come in the womb of a virgin to Bethlehem, the foretold city, in order to invade human history and save His people.

The angels proclaim peace to the shepherds (and to us all). The longings of God’s people are answered by this announcement. Jesus came to rescue people from fear and guilt, sin and death; “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). One of the great titles foretold for the Messiah was that He would be the “Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). In Ephesians 2:14, Paul writes; “For he Himself is our peace.” One of the great, comforting promises Jesus Himself gave to His disciples was, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful” (Jn. 14:27). 

The Reason He Came

We cannot consider the peace of Christ without an honest, uncompromising look at how that peace was attained. This peace does not come from the warm feelings that well up in us at the tender scene of Mary and her new-born child, nor does it come from the teaching of love and forgiveness Jesus provided as an adult. No, this peace was bought at a terrible price. We see this in the words of the Lord Himself in Hebrews 10:5-7;

Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.” Then I said, “Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of Me) to do Your will, O God.”

Jesus came in human, bodily form in order that He would one day offer that body as a sacrifice on Calvary to pay for the sins of men. We see traces and hints of this horrible violence even in His birth story, as Herod orders the slaughter of innocent children in his mad, jealous attempt to eliminate this rival “King of the Jews” (Matt 2:16-18). On the day Jesus’ parents brought their new-born Son to the Temple to present Him to the Lord, could Mary have imagined the darkness of the cross when Simeon prophesied that a sword would pierce her soul? The peace the angels announced came “through the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:20). 

In Hebrews 10, where we read Jesus’ “parting words” before He entered human life as a divine embryo, the teaching is clear that the sacrifices commanded and performed in the Old Testament were a mere “shadow of the good things to come” (10:1) that could not permanently remove sin, explaining why they had to be repeated year after year for all those centuries of waiting. Those sacrifices, being powerless to save, were a mere “reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (10:3-4). The Law put in place by Moses, never meant to save but meant to show people their sin and point ahead to Christ, shows the futility of human effort, especially as it becomes empty ritual. That sweet infant body in the manger is the body spoken of here, prepared for a sacrifice in order to perform God’s will; “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10). We can not separate the cross from the Incarnation, from Christmas, for it is the source of that promised and proclaimed peace; to do this is to be like the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day;

They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, “Peace, peace,” But there is no peace (Jer. 6:14).

Paul wrote to the Corinthian church; 

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4). 

“I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). 

Paul—and all of Scripture—is eminently clear that apart from the cross, we can not understand Christ; apart from the cross, the Incarnation makes no sense. Interestingly, we are never in Scripture commanded to celebrate or commemorate the birth of Jesus, but we are given a clear command by the Lord Himself to remember His death (Matt 26:26-28; 1 Cor. 11:23-26), and not just His death but also His resurrection and the new life we have because of what He has done, what He alone could do.

Christmas and the Cross

Two words stand out as we consider the Christmas story—humility and glory. There is the utter humility of Mary and Joseph, a poor couple far from home, forced to deliver their first-born into the world in a manger. At the same time a band of angels, surrounded by the glory of God Himself, proclaims the arrival of the new-born King, the promised Messiah! These words follow Jesus throughout His earthly life, as He Himself lived a life of poverty, often with no place to lay His head (Matt. 8:20), but also a life wrapped in glory, “glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). We are captured, perhaps even charmed, by the humble picture of Jesus in the manger, the holy family huddled as outcasts that night in a tender moment. Jesus would be humbled much further than this, humility giving way to humiliation as He hung on the cross, the ultimate outcast taking on the sins of man. Yet here too there is glory. In Philippians, Paul explains how Christ took on flesh, humbled Himself as a servant, humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross. 

For this reason also, God highly exalted him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father (Phil. 2:9-11).

The long-awaited time of Jesus’ arrival still contained some surprises. The shepherds, still reeling from their angelic visitation, must have found it puzzling that the heralded Messiah they were sent to find would be a peasant child sleeping in a feeding trough. The magi surely found it odd that the foretold King would be found in Bethlehem, not the palace in Jerusalem (which, remember, was their first stop). 

Likewise, the other end of Jesus’ earthly life contained its own surprise, found in the angel’s question to the women at the empty tomb; “Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen” (Lk. 24:5-6). We joyfully celebrate the life of the Savior at Christmas, a celebration made even more joyous by the fact that He lives today as our risen Lord, victorious over the cross and sin and death. †

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Scott Blakey is a Bible teacher at Arrowhead Christian Academy in Redlands, California, where he has ministered for 23 years. He holds a Master’s degree in Biblical Counseling and is a member of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. He and his wife, Sheri, have been married for 25 years and have two sons, Samuel and Aaron. They worship and serve at Trinity Church in Redlands. He seeks to be a man like Ezra, first studying and living out the Word before teaching it, and he is constantly amazed by God’s grace and goodness.