The universal uniqueness of Christmas
What is Christmas about? What is all the fuss? Visits to Santa Claus, presents, decorations, parades, family gatherings and scrumptious meals seem to be part of the package. That certainly has been my experience during my seven decades of sentient thought in America and the United Kingdom.
Of course, all those phenomena are derivatives, cultural accouterments that often obscure or camouflage the real meaning of Christmas.
Christmas is first, foremost, and always about Incarnation — God became human (John 1:14) in order for Him to sacrifice Himself for the sin and rebellion of the entire world. Jesus came as the Redeemer King, to redeem mankind and the creation from the calamitous Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden with all its subsequent consequences on man corporately and individually.
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The truest of the timeless truths is that for some unfathomable reason, the Supreme God of the Universe loves each and every human being with an agape love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” and “never ends” (I Cor. 13:7-9a).
Our Savior, whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Day, came “to die on a cross” for which “God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name so at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow” (Phil. 2:8-10).
The great glory is that Jesus died for each one of us individually and His eternal salvation is open to any and all who accept the Holy Spirit’s convicting and redeeming work in their lives and trust Him and Him only for their eternal salvation.
In an age when the individual is mostly perceived as part of this group, or that group, or this or that ethnicity or gender, we need to reclaim the uniquely invaluable uniqueness and worth of every single solitary human being.
We are each unique and invaluable because God made us so. He told us that He knits and embroiders each of us into the unique human being each of us is made at conception and in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-16):
“You knit me together in my mother's womb…I have been remarkably and wondrously made….My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret….Your eyes saw me when I was formless, all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began” (Psalm 139:13-16).
Modern genetics confirms our uniqueness in that even identical twins have unique characteristics. If a mother and a father have 10 or more children together, they each will have a unique chromosomal makeup and a unique, never-to-be-duplicated fingerprint.
Each and every human being is uniquely valuable and precious to God. The word “unique” is uniquely suited to the concept here because unique means “one of a kind, something never to be exactly duplicated ever again. Unique is far better than perfect (which has performance standards) and inevitably invites comparisons with others.
“Unique” has no performance standards. It is a state of being or existence. Unique has to do with who you are, not what you can do or cannot do.
The Bible tells us that He sees each of us human beings as uniquely invaluable and that He sent Jesus to die on the cross to retrieve and redeem our unique purpose since no one can do as good a job of being the unique person God created you to be as you can.
When someone accepts Jesus’ sacrifice for him or her and is redeemed by trusting Jesus as their Lord and Savior, they then can know the joy of being God’s man or God’s woman being on the divine business that God created each of us to fulfill in the first place.
I have had people say to me in response to this, “Well, that may be well and good for a child or a young person, but I’m an adult and I am already so far off the path that God could never put me in the middle of His plan for my life.”
My response is simple. “Do you think God is surprised at where you are in your life at this moment? Of course not. But He is perfectly capable of taking you from where you are now to where He wants you to be and has always planned for you to be if you will repent of your sins and accept Him as your Savior and Lord. He will enter your life and you will become the “twice-born person of unique value to the King of Kings that He created you to be.”
Yes, Christmas is the best news anyone has ever been given. God never created a nobody. Everybody is “uniquely” a somebody to God. Even the hairs of our heads “are all counted” (Lk. 12:7).
We are called to trust Jesus as our Savior and become His faithful followers. As we trust Him and obey Him, He reveals our invaluable uniqueness to ourselves and to others.
Everyone is a person we should view as uniquely valuable because Jesus died for that person and Jesus has a plan and a purpose for their lives.
That is certainly good news to be sharing hither and yon this Christmas season and every day thereafter!
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
