What is Christmas all about anyway? Giving and receiving gifts, spending time with family and friends, Christmas trees, Yule logs, carols in the snow, a visit from Santa Claus? Well, of course! But it’s so much more than that. It’s about learning to live sent.

Most Christians consider the Apostle Paul to be the first missionary. A missionary is someone who leaves his own culture and goes to a different culture to tell people, who would not otherwise know, the good news that God loves them and wants them to know Him. And yes, Paul did all of that. But I would suggest that before Paul, there was another missionary who crossed much a wider cultural divide than Paul did.

The Apostle John writes of Him:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. . . . 14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1–2, 14)

The Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, God Himself, left glory, and came to earth as a man, the man Jesus, to bring the good news of salvation to all people.

How much wider a divide could one cross than the “cultural” divide between a holy God and sinful people?

Maybe I should add “Learning to live sent” to my list of what Christmas is all about. God the Father sent the Son so that we could know Him. And the Son sent us to take this Good News to all people. Can we do less than He?

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