Why Christmas?
December 14, 2025
Like most dog owners, I love my dog. I am fully persuaded that she is (objectively) the most beautiful pooch on the planet! There have been moments when I’ve wondered how to effectively communicate the sheer depth of my love for her (something beyond giving her a juicy bone). So, recently, during one such moment, I found myself kneeling beside her as she lay on her favorite pillow and whispering “I love you” into her large floppy ears. She may not have understood the words or the sentiment behind them, but when I rose from the floor I had a deeper understanding of why Christ had to come.
The Infinite Being we call “God” is so awesome that our best efforts to understand, let alone explain Him to others are as significant as a single grain of sand on the seashore. In our finite human vocabulary, our best theologians have described God, among many words, as “self-existing,” “eternal,” “immutable,” “infinite,” “moral,” or “simple.” Books upon books have been written to try to unpack what these words mean and how we experience (or think we experience) the manifold attributes they represent.
Paul, the apostle, alluded to the incomprehensibility of God in 1 Cor 2:10-12 when he said only the Spirit of God could know the thoughts of God. God laid out the profound gap between Him and humanity in the scathing last chapters of the book of Job (Jb. 38-42) when he taught his wounded servant the humbling lesson we must all learn eventually—we may be able to know something about God, but we simply cannot fully understand anything about Him (just as an ant could not fully comprehend any aspect of human nature). That means if we are to know God in any meaningful way, He would need to find a way to reveal himself to us.
To save us the headache and futility of trying to grasp who He is and His disposition towards us, God stooped to our level and became one of us (Phil. 2:7; John 1:14). In Christ, God became human, and through Christ’s life and works, we now have some real and usable knowledge of who God is and how much He loves us.
Because He came, we can now hear and understand Him when He whispers “I love you” into our weird little ears.
Thank God for Christmas.