It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

At our house, we squeeze all the mileage out of the Christmas season that we can. Many in the culture lament how the evidences of Christmas seem to appear earlier every year. For some, this is not a lament, just an observation. I like Christmas, most all of it, anytime. I like Christmas trees, Santa Claus and giving gifts. I love all the traditions that warm our hearts and bring smiles to the faces of children. In the midst of all this, I have never had the least bit of difficulty keeping central that precious theological truth at the heart of Christmas, the Incarnation of God in the Person of Jesus Christ. I enjoy the evidences of Christmastime no matter how early they appear.

Did you know that in a sense, Christmas existed in the mind of God as early as the Garden of Eden? The first prophecy pertaining to the coming of Jesus did not emerge from a warm and pleasant circumstance. God was in the process of pronouncing His curse upon the human race and upon His creation because sin had entered into the world. But then again, it was our sin that made Christmas necessary, so the backdrop for the glory of Christmas is anything but beautiful.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."  - Genesis 3:15

Classic theology refers to this single verse as the proto-evangelium; “the First Gospel.” Charles Spurgeon called this verse, “the first gospel sermon that was ever delivered upon the surface of this earth.” In other words, this was the earliest hint of Christmas coming to the world. Satan had won a major battle. He had destroyed, or so he thought, a part of God’s handiwork. He had convinced Eve that God could not be trusted and he tempted her to disobey her Creator. Adam followed suit. Have no doubt that God was angry with Adam and Eve. Interestingly, however, before He pronounced His curse upon them for what they had done, He hinted that a hope of restoration lay ahead.

In spite of their sin, God’s first words were not directed at Adam and Eve, but to the serpent, the tempter, the devil himself. God took it very personally that Satan had introduced sin into His perfect world. The devil had set himself against God, and God told him at the outset of the conflict, “This will not stand! I will repair what you have done.” This was not a veiled prophecy foretelling the coming of Jesus. This was God’s up-front, in-Satan’s-face declaration: “I will win this!”

In a world where sin had taken over, God kept His promise alive. When God called Abraham, He promised to build a great nation from his descendants. But, He also promised to bless the whole world through that same nation. That nation produced Jesus, Who destroyed the work of sin. God entered the world as the seed of a woman, a human being. And, though the cross was a brutal and vile striking at the heel of that seed of woman, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was the final triumph over the work of Satan. The head of the snake was crushed. The power of sin and the sting of death were destroyed – and it all began with the birth of a baby.

My kids get more frustrated with me every year, because I never “give them any ideas” for what they can get me for Christmas. I’ll take whatever expression of affection they choose to offer, because a long time ago, I learned that all I really needed for Christmas is a crushed snake, and Jesus has already provided that.