On the day that Alexander the Great was born, the temple of Diana or Artemis of Ephesus burned down. Plutarch says that the Eastern soothsayers knew this was a sign of calamity for all of Asia. Alexander’s father Philip received three pieces of news all at once. His enemies the Illyrians had just been overthrown in battle. His racehorse had just won the Olympic games. His wife Olympias had given birth to a son. And that son claimed mighty heritage. His mother was said to have descended from the great warrior Achilles. His father, from the hero Hercules. Others believed his true father was Zeus, that he was born of the gods.
A great birth portends great things.
The birth that we celebrate this day is undoubtedly a great birth. It is the ultimate legendary birth, and yet at the same time, it intersects with history, with this world, with us in a way that is far more real and meaningful than anything in the stories about Alexander or anyone else. Christ the Lord is born. Born of God and born of man. The hope of the ages, born for you.
No matter how many great events or omens are said to surround a birth, birth isn’t really glorious. It’s wonderful. It’s amazing. It’s miraculous, even—a new human being, a new human life, brought into the world. But there’s a reason that babies are born in private. A birth is not glorious. It’s a pretty lowly and undignified thing. That’s true for kings and emperors. It’s true for the obscenely wealthy. It’s true for the proud and haughty, just as much as it’s true for those who are poor and humble and of low station in life. We all come into this world a mess, naked and utterly helpless.
It’s rather appropriate, when you think about it. Every one of us born the exact same way, made of the exact same human stuff, going all the way back to the same human parents. What were they like, those first parents of ours? They were perfect and holy, like the God and Father who made them, until they weren’t, until they listened to the serpent’s temptation, until they decided that they knew better than their all-knowing God. And then, cursed by sin and cast out of paradise, Adam had a son in his own image, an image unworthy of paradise, an image far from God. God had said to Eve “with painful labor you will give birth to children” and that first son, Cain, was born in pain and in undignity and in sin, sin which showed itself greatly when he later murdered his own brother.
That’s not just Cain though, it’s who we are, all of us. There was no heavenly light shining down when you were born. There were no choirs singing when you came into this world, no halo over your head. Whether you were born in a hospital or in a home or in the seat of a car it’s all the same. That undignified, lowly nature is ours. That image of Adam. That sin.
But the birth that we celebrate this day was truly different. Oh it was lowly. It was humble. His ancestry included kings, but he not born in a palace in Jerusalem. There was no room for him in his ancestral town. He was laid in a manger, a feeding trough for livestock. There have been various non-Scriptural legends about how exactly the birth took place. That for this one birth there was no pain. That there was no labor even, but he miraculously passed out from his mother. That it was in complete silence—“no crying he makes.” Certainly he did not cry from anger or selfishness, and these other things might be possible, but let’s face it—they aren’t found in the Scriptural record and they are likely invented because people just can’t imagine a birth so lowly for one so great.
And great he surely is. “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brother Israelites. Listen to him,” Moses said.
To David the Lord declared through his prophet Nathan, “I will raise up after you your seed, who will come from your own body. I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”
David wrote of this promised Seed
The decree of the LORD to my lord:
“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies
a footstool under your feet.” …
The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind:
“You are a priest forever, in the manner of Melchizedek.”
And the prophet Isaiah announced: “The Lord himself will give a sign for all of you. Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and name him Immanuel.” And again
For to us a child is born.
To us a son is given.
The authority to rule will rest on his shoulders.
He will be named:
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
Prophet, Priest, and King. A birth announced by angels. A birth signified by the stars in the sky. Born of a virgin. Born of God. It sounds mythological, like the claim that Alexander the Great’s father was Zeus. What then sets this apart? What convinces us that this is a day worth celebrating, that it is more than tall tales and myths, that the events recorded here in Scripture mean everything for us and for the whole world?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
God is not a God who is distant from us, who is hidden and obscure. He is a God who speaks, who reveals himself, who comes to us, lowly and undignified and sinful as we are. And he is a God who takes action, who bears his mighty arm, who crushes and lifts up, who kills, and who brings to life.
But what can save us, who are born in the squalor of sin, in the image of our father Adam? What can save us who deserve to be crushed under the weight of our guilt and suffer death and hell for our sin? Nothing. No one, except the one who is born of God, the Son of God, the Word promised by God, through his prophets, throughout the ages. In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.
The real difference, the thing that makes this lowly birth so great, so worth celebrating with all your heart on this day, is that this birth was for you. That is the message that Scripture proclaims, “To us a Son is born.” “In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind.” “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind.”
This lowly birth was for you. God joins himself to you. He takes your place. And in doing so he proclaims to you peace and life and light. This child, this infant, who is true God born of God, is the one who has come in all humility to rescue you from sin, and to destroy your death and to conquer your hell. He did not come into this world to make for himself a name. He did not come for glory and fame and power. He left those things and came for a cross. He came to suffer. He came to die.
And he came to rise from death so that you may be born of God. John says,
To all who did receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. 13They were born, not of blood, or of the desire of the flesh, or of a husband’s will, but born of God.
You, you who were born in sin and misery, destined for death and judgment, you have a new life. You have a new birth in Jesus who was born for you. That new birth took place in your baptism, when by water and the Holy Spirit you were born again, born from above. Your first birth was in the image of sinful Adam, but your new birth is in the image of Christ, renewed and restored in you, for whom he was born and lived, for whom he died and rose again.
And so this birth, dear Christians, this precious birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we celebrate this day, is yours. Your birth, your life, your righteousness, your salvation. In this lowly, humble birth you are born of God. He is your Father.
The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. We have seen his glory, the glory he has as the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Celebrate this day. Celebrate this birth. Give thanks to God, your Father, who has given for you his onlybegotten Son, who has chosen you to be his own. To us a child is born! To us a Son is given. Alleluia! Amen.
— Pastor Seth Georgson