“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” What a glorious greeting, the angels gave that first Christmas night. The angelic visitation to the shepherd marked one of the greatest event in history, the advent to Jesus Christ.
Around Christmas we talk a lot about four powerful words, hope, peace, joy, and love. Common Christmas lyrics include lines like, “joy to the world”, “peace on earth”, “and hope of all the earth thou art”.
Each of the four weeks of advent, the weeks leading up to Christmas, focuses on one of these four words. Your church might celebrate the advent season by lighting a candle each Sunday in December to remember the reason for Christ birth.
Light is another beautiful reminder of God’s greatest gift. He sent his son Jesus to earth to bring light to this dark and sinful world. Bright Christmas lights and candles serve as a symbol of the light Christ brought to the earth. Christ light shines into the darkness and exposes our sin and our need for a savior, giving us the opportunity to turn to God.
Each of these things are amazing parts of God’s story that we call Christmas, but none of these gifts would be possible without God’s grace.
A wonderful picture of God’s grace comes from the very beginning of Christ’s life on earth, even before his Birth. In Luke, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary and greets her, saying: “Greetings Oh favored one, the Lord is with you!”
Think about this greeting for a moment.
Mary, a humble young woman from a tiny town in Galilee, found favor with God. This is truly an incredible thing. How often do we stop and think about how awesome it is that God favored Mary? Not because Mary was anyone special, or had done anything special, or even deserved God’s favor.
None of us deserves God’s favor, but God is gracious enough to give it to anyone who puts their faith in him. In fact, that is exactly what grace is: the undeserved favor of God.
God’s favor toward Mary is only the begging of the story, because something greater was still to come. Soon, Mary gave birth to her son, and God became a man, Jesus. He was a man full of grace and truth, and from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
Grace is another powerful part of the story of God’s gift at Christmas time. And it certainly is a gift. Since just like the gifts we give at Christmas, it costs us nothing.
However, unlike the Christmas gifts under our tree, we can be thankful that the gifts of hope, joy, peace, love, and light given on the first Christmas will never fade away.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, “
Ephesians 2:8