By Mary Carothers

I love Christmas! I love the family get-togethers. I love thinking about the presents Merlin and I are going to give to those we love. The decorations are one of the most “fun” parts of Christmas. I really get into decorating our home for the holidays. And the lights! Ah, how I love the lights of Christmas. Each year Merlin and I ride around our town, looking at all the lights, and I enjoy Christmas now as much as I did as a child. It has been my favorite time of year.

Christmas is an expensive time of year, though. Despite all the joy and fun, it is costly. Especially for the Lord. Have you ever thought of the cost of Christmas for Jesus? It is very nearly beyond our human ability to comprehend all that Christmas cost our Lord.

We are familiar with the concept of the triune Godhead; The equal persons in the one God: God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit. In the beginning God, the Son, was equal with God, the Father. Philippians 2:6 tells us that God, the Son, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped – held onto. Before men sinned, the Godhead determined that God, the Son, would become man – in order to redeem mankind. God, who knows all things, was not caught unprepared when Adam and Eve disobeyed in the garden. He knew the ultimate cost that He, God the Son, would pay. He would empty Himself of the power and prerogatives of His Deity, and become man – but without our fallen, sinful nature. As man He still maintained His God nature yet made Himself completely subject to the Father. Only as man could Jesus be tempted in every way that we are tempted. As man, He resisted every temptation, and became the sinless sacrifice, the Lamb without spot.

When God raised Jesus from the dead, He seated Christ on the throne at His right hand. There He sits today, Hebrews tells us, as our High Priest – ever interceding for us (see Hebrews 4:15).

It is as man that He does this. I Timothy 2:5 says, For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus…”

In some way that we cannot quite grasp, Jesus is forever both God and man. He paid a price for Christmas that we will understand only in eternity. I Corinthians 15:28 tells us that when God has put all things in subjection to Jesus, then Jesus will put Himself in subjection to the Father – that God, the Father, will be supreme – for all eternity.

How costly Christmas has been for Jesus! (Reprint from 1996)