It is sometimes grumbled among Christians that the focus on “Baby Jesus” at Christmastime is misplaced – that it was the God-Man Jesus, not the Baby, that provided the salvation so desperately needed by mankind. There is a certain sourness about that attitude that ought to warn us that something is wrong. For the first announcement of that unique birth was voiced by an angel who appeared to a group of shepherds who were gathered together in the fields around Bethlehem, where they were “keeping watch over their flocks by night.”
After telling them not to be afraid, he said, “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day…a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11) At His very birth, this little Baby is called “a Saviour.” And it was good news to these nameless shepherds, because Jesus was born “unto you.”
Babies are born “unto” their parents, not anyone else. How was it possible that this one little Stranger could be born “unto you? (And “you” that read are part of that “you” in this story!) How could any of them (or us) have a part in that statement? What was (or is) He to them, or us? And here is the key to why we ought to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
From before the creation of the universe, God, knowing that man would fall into sin, planned to send His Son (the Second Person of the Trinity, by Whom He made the worlds, Hebrews 1:2) to the earth, to take on human flesh, and be born a baby, to grow up and live a perfectly sinless life, and then die on a cross to pay the penalty of sin for all men. Then after three days He would be resurrected, and soon go back to heaven. And He has promised to come again. And those who love Him await that Second Coming.
But none of it would have happened if this God-Man had not first been born, unknown and largely ignored, in a stable in a little out-of-the-way town in Judea two thousand plus years ago. As His death and resurrection were “unto you,” so also was His birth. You have a stake in that one Person, if you will take it. Will you? The shepherds were just doing their thing when the skies opened up. What I write today may be your “open sky:” go and see the Baby. Then trust the sacrifice of the grown Man, which was also “unto you.”