Hebrews 9:22 states "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness"
An odd way to start a discussion about Christmas to be sure. But this one passage, in my humble opinion, is the basis for both Christmas and Easter transpiring the way they did. In fact, I will go so far as to show that they had to go down the way they did.
Plain logic is what I will use.
The Covenant of the old testament involved the shedding of blood to atone for a sin (forgiveness). That is what is meant "the law requires."
God felt a need to change the covenant. Don't know why but it doesn't matter for understanding. If God all of the sudden says "Whoa, let's stop doing this and start doing that, disregard what I said before." That is not very stable. Wouldn't take long for people to tire of a god like that.
However, to change the covenant and still have the first covenant fulfilled, a blood sacrifice would have to still cover all sins. What earthly thing could be sacrificed and be so amazing that all sins for all people for the rest of humanity would be forgiven? I can't think of anything that impressive.
That's where Christmas comes in. Something greater than anything in this world would have to shed blood, so something had to come to earth. Not only would it have to be not of this world, but perfect. We wouldn't be able to appreciate the blood covering our sin unless we had a common reference point. Hence human form. To further the pattern of loving forgiveness, the human lived a perfect life and took on a child/parent status so we would further understand the significance of the blood that would be shed.
One shedding of blood covering billions of people's sins. Only something so extreme would seem to have relevance for such a long time. If the one big sacrifice was a perfect animal, Christianity would have died shortly after the animal. Even if the sacrifice was a regular human, the significance would not fly for this long. God had to come to us. Not because He needed it that way, but because we would need it that way.
That brings us to Easter--the fulfillment of the first covenant and the beginning of the new covenant. What is that new covenant? Love.
Why did we need Christmas and Easter? For the example of true love.
In Matthew 22:36, we learn that love is what ALL the teachings were about in both the old and new agreements between God and people. After all, the Bible says God is love.
Ok, both Christmas and Easter are connected. They represent a transition in the agreement between God and people. The emphasis changed from "the rules" to "salvation from the rules." The pattern for true love is given.
Unfortunately, we've turned both holidays into materialistic happy times. How about we start a trend and make them loving happy times. Find somebody to share a loving moment with this Christmas.
Kurt Holdorf
Kurt@kurtholdorf.com
No comments:
Post a Comment