The Gift of Life

            It’s hard to believe that another Christmas is right around the corner.  Didn’t we just do this a little while ago?  This season means different things to different people.  Little kids get giddy about Santa, school vacation, presents under the tree, and other fun stuff.  Big kids (like us) look forward to time with family, huge amounts of food, days off work, and . . . presents under the tree.  Of course there are many who dread Christmas because of painful memories, lack of meaningful family relationships, no money with which to buy presents, or a busier work schedules than normal.

            But what’s it really all about anyway?  In short, it’s the two-thousand year old, international birthday celebration of a man who was born for one reason alone – to die.  Christmas is meant to be a joyous, meaningful, happy time of giving and receiving gifts.  Let’s enjoy the celebration, but also remember that Christ’s birth was not an end in itself.  It’s the beginning of the story, not the end.  Christ’s birth was the first step on his journey to the cross.  It was there that his true purpose was fulfilled.  That purpose was to give us life. So we could accurately say that Jesus was born in order to die in order to give us life.  Jesus explained that he came to give us life in great abundance (John 10:10).

            We need his gift of life because we were born dead.  Not physically dead, of course, but spiritually dead.  Because we were not in relationship with God when we were born, the Bible informs us that we are spiritually dead.  What does a dead person need more than anything else?  Life!  And that is exactly what Jesus died to give us.  Ahhh, but what kind of life?  The answer to that question is one that eludes many people.  Some folks seem to think that the life given by God is some kind of cosmic energy that ties the universe together.  Sounds interesting, but it’s far from accurate.  Others believe that God’s gift of life is a kind of religious quality that only works right if a person obeys a bunch of rules and regulations.  Thankfully, that isn’t true either.

            The New Testament uses three Greek words for life.  The first one is “bios”.  We get the English word “biology” from “bios”.  A tree or flower has bios, and so do you and I, but that’s not the word that Jesus used.  He didn’t die and rise from the dead to give us a better biology.  The second word is “psuché”, from which we get the word “psychology”.  However, that’s not the word that Jesus used either.  The purpose of the cross was not to improve our psyche or personalities.  So it must be the third word – zoé.  This word means “the very life of God,” or “life as God intended it to be.”  This is the word Jesus used most often when talking about “life”.  He came AS the very life of God in order to GIVE us the very life of God.  Now that’s worth celebrating!

            So this Christmas, if you are walking in relationship with God through Christ, celebrate the life he’s given you.  If you haven’t truly come alive yet, please consider inviting the Life-Giver to bestow his gift upon you.  After all, it’s why he was born in the first place.

Derryck McLuhan

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