Reimagining Christmas God’s way …

The day after Thanksgiving often feels like a signal flare — Christmas is coming! For many, this marks the start of a whirlwind of shopping, decorating, parties, plans, and overspending. Amongst the holiday hubbub you’ll likely hear a Christian insist, “Keep Christ in Christmas!” Yet when we reflect on how God gave us that first Christmas, our celebrations often look nothing like it. But imagine if they did — how different might this season become, not just for us, but for everyone around us?

Let’s take a look at how God gave us that first Christmas …

1. It was an act of love.
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life,” John 3:16.

The first Christmas was the greatest act of love the world had ever witnessed. God didn’t simply offer affection; He gave His Son. He loved the unlovable, reaching into a broken world to offer hope and salvation.

2. It was an act of humility.
“Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being …” Philippians 2:6-7a.

The Creator of all things, the One through whom and for whom everything exists, humbled Himself to become a human being. He entered the world not as a conquering king but as a helpless infant, wrapped in strips of cloth and laid in a feeding trough. The humiliation of the eternal, all-powerful God taking on human frailty is beyond what we can fully grasp. Yet, it was His choice to step into the world He created in the most vulnerable way possible.

3. It was the launch of God’s mission of reconciliation.
The birth of Christ was no isolated event. It was the beginning of God’s mission to reconcile a broken world to Himself. As 2 Corinthians 5:19a reminds us, “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them …”

Imagine if our Christmas celebrations became opportunities for reconciliation — with family, friends, and others we are estranged from. How would that transform the season for you and those around you?

4. It was a sacrifice for the hopeless.
The first Christmas was a gift to the undeserving and the hopeless. Jesus came to rescue those enslaved by sin and trapped in a broken world. Yet our giving often focuses on those we love, care for, or want to impress.

What if this Christmas we looked beyond our circles to those in real need, or the greatest need — the hungry, the homeless, the forgotten? Could we reflect God’s heart by giving sacrificially to those who cannot repay us?

5. It was an act of joy.
Before creation, God planned the gift of His Son. The first Christmas was the joyful beginning of that plan. “God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure,” Ephesians 1:5.

This wasn’t a reluctant response to a broken world; it was a deliberate act of joy. God’s pleasure wasn’t in the pain and sacrifice but in the redemption and reconciliation it would accomplish.

What if we followed God’s example on that first Christmas?

What if our Christmas reflected the heart of God?

How would that change — and enrich — your celebration this Christmas season?

Scotty