Today is the western world’s traditional Christmas Day. For the majority of people, it is mostly if not completely an irreligious holiday. Christ Jesus appearing as a human being has little or nothing to do with their celebration, if they celebrate anything at all.

For many it is a day to look back on an event that happened roughly 2000 years ago, the birth of Christ Jesus as a human in the small village of Bethlehem. For these it is a mostly religious celebration mixed with a lot of irreligious activities, worldly values, and rank consumerism. If Christ is remembered it is usually as an infant. The celebration has little if any connection to the likely actual events, and is filled with religious traditions drawn from human religiosity.

For a few, the day is the celebration of the incarnation of God the Son in human flesh, which launched an invasion by our God to redeem, reconcile, and restore not just lost humanity but all of creation itself. In all of our God’s activities past, present, and future, this incarnation of the Godhead in human flesh is the most momentous and important work.

C.S. Lewis speaks to the miracle of the Incarnation of God in Christ: “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation.  They say that God became man.  Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular miracle of God manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation.  There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about.  It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion – an invasion which intends to complete conquest and “occupation.”

This incarnation represents more than simply the salvation of people so they might spend eternity with God. Salvation is but a step in the process our God has begun to redeem all creation from bondage due to the twin rebellions against of angels and humans. That redemption opens the way to the reconciliation and restoration of all creation to the purposes and will of our God. Now, all things can be restored to His glory.

Humans benefit from our God’s invasion of the fallen, sin-bent creation because we are included in His redemptive, restorative work. We are offered a release from the inescapable futility of living apart from Him. He offers to replace our rebellious self-living with His life within us. By this offer alone can we be restored to the divine life of God in us that Adam in his rebellious choice threw away.

If we choose to surrender all our living to Him and to be reborn from above by the indwelling Spirit of Christ in us, we gain the Kingdom of our God. We gain release from the oppressive grip of the curse that plagues humanity due to the rebellion. We can abide in the fullness of the life of our God in us every day. Everything for which we were created is delivered into us by the Spirit of Christ in us, now and for eternity.

That is the good news Jesus proclaimed during the “time on earth” phase of His incarnation. You can live that life now in your “time on earth” phase of eternal life. Religiosity will not grant this to you. Only the surrender to the “God in Christ in you” life Christ Jesus offers us will grant this.

All because of the grandest, most central miracle of them all, the Incarnation. Happy Incarnation Day, everyone!