http://christsauthenticchristianity.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/unto-us-a-child-...
Coming back from the Christmas candlelight service at Pinson United Methodist, my mind is reflecting on the connection between Christ’s birth and His death. It has been said that He was born to die, that the main purpose of His coming to Earth was fulfill his eternal purpose of redeeming mankind from their sin by His sacrifice on the cross. He was the perfect and spotless Lamb of God.
You see, only a man could redeem mankind but the problem is that no man that has ever lived was perfect or blameless enough to do it. God had to redeem us himself in the form of a man. So, He came in the person of Jesus Christ, born of a Virgin, blameless and sinless, completely God and completely man all wrapped up in one person.
His birth is inseparably connected to His death. He had to be the perfect, sinless Lamb of God, not only to fulfill the Old testament sacrificial requirements, but he had to be born of a virgin so that he would not inherit the stain of original, Adamic sin that all mankind has. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes foreshadowing the grave cloths that He would one day be wrapped in His tomb. The wise men brought Him gifts of rare spices that were used to embalm the bodies of the Jewish dead. He was lain in a manger, which is a feeding trough used for animals, foreshadowing that He would be the Bread of Life that we would eat during the Eurcharist. There was no place for Him in the Inn, just as there is found no place for Him in many of our lives and hearts yet He chooses to reside in the humble stable just as hearts that humble themselves to Him find shelter. Just like the Wise men that came from the East, if we seek Him, we will find Him.
May the peace, love, and joy that our Heavenly Father sent down to an unworthy world rest in all of your hearts. Embrace Him and open your heart to His grace. He died for you and wants you to believe in His Son Jesus.
He said, I am the Way the Truth and the Life and no man cometh to the Father but by me.
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