December 2025
So a young unmarried woman, claiming that she was still a virgin,
gave birth to a baby boy in the chaos that Caesar inflicted by commanding everyone
to travel back to their home town for a census – and her fiancé believed her?! And not because they were ignorant people –
they all knew full well where babies ordinarily come from and Joseph was ready
to split from his unfaithful fiancée over this.
But he and others came to accept that God, the Creator of all, didn’t
need the seed of any man to create a baby within Mary.
The thing is, this is not the part of the account that most
challenges our earth-bound assumptions. Those
who tell the story go on to explain that the arrival of Mary’s son was like that
of a traveller from another world – his body was new but he himself was older
than the hills, for he made them: “without him nothing was made that has been
made” (John 1:3).
And when the authorities caught up with Jesus, found a way
to condemn him with their lying accusations and had him brutally executed, his
disciples claimed that he only stayed dead for a couple of days. Not merely resuscitated, God “exalted him to
the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord …” (Philippians 2:9-10).
It's enough to make you string up bright lights around your
home, buy in the best food you can afford for a celebration meal, hand out
presents to those you love, and to sing at the top of your voice:
Christians, awake, salute the
happy morn,
Whereon the Saviour of the world was born;
Rise to adore the mystery of love,
Which hosts of angels chanted from above;
With them the joyful tidings first begun
Of God incarnate and the Virgin’s Son.
Happy Christmas!
Graham Burrows
