More Than The Babe of Bethlehem

This is the house in rural Clarke County, Mississippi where old Dr. Irby attended my Mother as I was born on June 20, 1946.  My earthly life actually began about nine months earlier at my conception, as sexual union of love between My Mother and Father.

I remember that house well.  As a child, I visited it often because my Uncle Renzor and his family lived there.

Across the road near the barn was a Mulberry tree whose succulent berries left their evidence embedded in our skin and clothing time and again.  A large pecan tree shaded the Southwest corner of the yard and fields of corn surrounded the house on three sides.    

I still remember the pungent odor of carbide headlamps assaulting my senses as I hunted, with my Dad and Uncle, the huge cane-cutter rabbits beyond the field to the east, along the gurgling cold creek as it cut through the dense underbrush toward Archusa Creek.

Jesus Christ was born in a manger in a stable in the small town of Bethlehem to Mary, a descendant of King David.  But unlike me, Jesus did not have His beginning nine months earlier at conception because Jesus has always existed.  He had no beginning.  He had no earthly father, rather his earthly mother conceived in her womb by a supernatural act of God's Holy Spirit and remained a physical sexual virgin until the days of her purification following the birth of Jesus.

Jesus was not just a baby born 2000 years ago in a small Palestinian village, who learned at His earthly father's knee to be a skilled carpenter.  He was, He is, and He always will be eternal God.  Unique, just as much God as if He were no part man, and just as much man as if He were no part God.  Not part God and part man, but uniquely all Man and all God at the same time, the God-Man.  

Scripture tells us in John 17:5 that He was in the beginning before the creation of the world, “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”

Jesus also says in John 8:58, "...Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” 

As we consider Santa Claus and the giving of gifts this Christmas season, each of us would do well to stop and consider that the greatest gift was when God gave His only Son, Jesus, and that Jesus did not remain the "Babe of Bethlehem."  

I pray your understanding of just who Jesus is will grow during this season, and you'll look back on Christmas 2013 as a time of growth in understanding, and commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ for your life.  

Give thanks for the Baby, but accept the Savior He became, and look in anxious anticipation for His soon return as Conqueror and Judge, while living in such a way as to reflect the belief that He is LORD TODAY!