I had some trepidation when we began our journey into the Christmas story several weeks ago. I knew we would focus on the birth of baby Jesus, which gave me pause. I hesitated because I didn’t want us to get so into the story that we trivialized Him, forgetting who that baby was.

When our granddaughter Kathryn was two, she and her friend Elizabeth loved manger scenes and the whole story of the Nativity. Their favorite thing to do that Christmas was to play Mary and Joseph, swapping who got to be Mary. We thought the game would blow over in a few weeks, but it continued for months. I would walk into their house and hear, “Okay, you can be a shepherd; I will be Mary, and Daddy is Joseph.” The longevity of their game was amazing. It was March, and we were still playing Mary and Joseph!

Christmas carols like Away in a Manger tell us that baby Jesus “laid down His sweet head” and “no crying He makes.” We also have the way Will Ferrell envisions the baby in the manger in Talladega Nights. If you talk to the sweet baby Jesus nicely, He will give you just what you want—millions of dollars! With all due respect to Kathryn and Elizabeth, the Christmas carol author, and Will Ferrell, Jesus is way more than that sweet child in the manger.

Last year, I saw a news show on television where they talked about how Christmas had become so commercial. They probed the question of what the meaning of Christmas is. People say it is important because we get together with family and friends, have a special meal, attend church, or sing memorable songs. Others said it is about the spirit of giving and helping those who are less fortunate. Others talked about trees, mistletoe, wreaths, and manger scenes. All of these things are fine. Some are very important, but are they the essence of Christmas?

I believe the major significance of Christmas is that the God of infinite majesty and glory went on a mission to our planet and condescended to be born as one of us—a helpless baby. The Lord could have chosen some other way to appear on the scene. He could have made a fantastic entrance from the skies as the superstars do at the Super Bowl. But He chose the most humbling circumstances. He came near as a baby. Matthew sums up the Christmas story with one word: Immanuel.

“And they shall call His name Immanuel, which translated means, ‘God with us.’” (Matthew 1:23).

God has not forgotten us. He humbled Himself to come among us. This is the essence of Christmas.

We have been looking into Matthew, Mark, and Luke here every week, but we turn to The Gospel of John this week. It has an entirely different take on the birth of Jesus than the other gospel writers. He doesn’t mention Mary’s encounter with Gabriel or explain why Joseph decided to marry Mary. John starts in a very different place and returns to the very beginning. He scans back over the eons of time to the very start, and Jesus is there. He always existed; He always is.

John 1:1-2 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” John takes us as far back as we can go, and when we get there, Jesus—the Word, the Logos—is there. He is eternal.

This claim to be eternal is the exact claim Jesus made in John 8:58: “Before Abraham was born, I am.” I exist; I am eternal, always in the present. We might miss the implications of what He said in John 8, but His opponents of that day understood clearly. They picked up stones to kill Him because they thought He had committed blasphemy by claiming to be eternal.

This sweet and mild baby is God—eternal God, always-existing God.

He is the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Logos is the Greek word used to translate “the Word” here. The meaning of Logos is more than our definition of “word.” Logos is a concept from Greek philosophy prevalent when the Gospel of John was written. Logos is the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning. The cause, the reason for everything we see—both physical and spiritual—is Jesus Christ, the Logos, the Word.

“All things came into being by Him; and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). He is not just the reason for creation; He is the agent of creation. He was the one through whom the worlds were created. Hebrews emphasizes this: “Through whom also He made the world” (Hebrews 1:2). Paul, in Colossians 1:16, says it this way: “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created by Him and for Him.”

In physics, when you get down to the smallest particle of matter known to man, the tiniest of the building blocks is called a quark. When you look at protons and neutrons inside of atoms, you see tiny particles so small they have almost no size; they are just little points. These tiny particles are quarks. Yet, no one can tell you what holds quarks together or why they don’t fall apart. Hebrews 1:2 tells us that Jesus “upholds all things by the word of His power.” Colossians 1:17 says, "He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together.”

Jesus is actively involved in sustaining His creation. That sweet baby Jesus in the manger is the eternal Logos, the reason for our visible universe. He is the One who created the universe and now sustains it. He upholds all things—all the way down to the most elemental things, the quarks—by the word of His power.

Jesus is both the creator and the sustainer of the universe. The biblical concept of the creator is not like that of the deists, who view God as a divine watchmaker. The deists believe God created the watch, wound it up, turned His back, and remained uninvolved as the watch unwinds.

But Jesus is personally involved with His creation. He promises, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). He tells us to cast our cares on Him, “for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). He invites us in Matthew 11 to come to Him and give Him our burdens. He says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

In the Christmas story, He knew we were separated from our relationship with God because of our sins. And so, He invaded His creation to be with us. I suppose God could have reconciled us to Himself by some impersonal action outside of time and space—I don’t know. Instead, He came to us as a helpless baby, lived as one of us, and completely identified with us. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that He can “sympathize with our weaknesses.” He knows what it is like to face temptation and suffer sorrow and fear. He identifies with us, yet He is without sin.

The sweet little Jesus child—“no crying He makes”—came that we might have life. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). Knowing Jesus is all about life. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).

The word “right” here means power and authority. When you believe in Jesus, you have the authority to decide, with your will, to come into life. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies” (John 11:25). He also said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6).

In our society, we often get pulled into a powerful swirl that distracts us from what life really is. We work hard at jobs to make more money so we can buy more things. Then, we pay to have them repaired, cleaned, and insured. But Jesus tells us life is not about things. Things are fine in their place, but they are not to be confused with life. Jesus wants us to take hold of that which is truly life.

Jesus is more than the tender, mild, holy infant sleeping in heavenly peace. Jesus came to reveal His Father. Without the teachings of Jesus about God the Father, we might imagine Him to be a mean ogre, waiting to punish us every time we step out of line. But Jesus came full of grace and truth. John tells us that “grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ” (John 1:16). We would not know the heart of the Father if Jesus had not revealed Him to us. “He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3).

“No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18). The word “explained” means to draw out, to unfold, to declare. Later, Jesus said to Philip, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:8-9).

When you look at that baby asleep on the hay, remember He is the God of all glory. Before He came to earth, He existed in incredible glory with the Father. John 17:5 teaches this. Philippians 2:5-8 explains that although, in eternity past, Jesus existed in the form of God, when He came to earth, He set aside His glory and emptied Himself. The sacrifice of the cross began with the sacrifice of leaving the glory He shared with His Father in heaven and limiting Himself to be born as a helpless human.

Do you remember the accounts of the transfiguration in the Gospels? When the glory hidden by His flesh shone through, His face shone brighter than the sun, and His clothes were dazzlingly white beyond anything earthly.

If He had kept His glory when He came to earth as a baby, no one could have even looked upon Him. No one could have stood before His splendor's glory; His presence's brightness would have blinded us. Those who had the privilege of seeing His glory at the transfiguration never got over it.

At the end of His life, just before He went to the cross, Jesus prayed for His own: “Father, I desire that My followers be with Me where I am so that they may behold My glory which You have given Me.” He knew He was returning to glory and wanted us to see Him in His rightful place. If we could truly glimpse who He is, we would fall to our faces in reverence and adoration. The baby in the manger is the King of Glory.

The Gospel of John begins by declaring Jesus as the eternal God—the Logos, the reason for creation, the agent of creation, the sustainer, the life-giver, the one who draws near, the revealer of the Father, the one who is full of grace and truth, and the one radiant with glory. After establishing this context, John recounts the birth of Jesus with these simple yet profound words in John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Logos—God Himself—set aside all it means to be God and came close to us. He became flesh and dwelt among us. Paul echoes this in 2 Corinthians 8:9: “Though He was rich, yet for your sake, He became poor.”

Consider the stunning contrast. God's glory, majesty, and loftiness juxtaposed with how low He stooped to be born as one of us. The 20th-century Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar put it this way: “Something impossible, something scandalous has occurred, God in His absolute being has resolved to manifest Himself in human life.” The word scandalous means something shocking, something that upsets, something disgraceful or improper. The King of Glory being born as a baby is indeed scandalous—and yet it is the heart of the Gospel.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the timeless lessons from this devotional. Help us to listen for Your voice, serve with unwavering hearts, seek Christ in humility, worship fearlessly, and obey Your call with courage. Teach us to trust Your plan even when we don’t understand, and guide us to reflect Your light in all we do. We honor You, Lord, and commit our lives to Your glory. Amen.