Blog

By Dr. Bill Lawrence 

president of Leader Formation International 

The first Christmas was not like Christmas as we know. it There were no parties, no trees, no cards, no dinners, no gifts, no carols, literally no nothing. Just a new mother named Mary, an earthly father named Joseph, and a new born named Jesus. Three unknowns who didn't matter, who barely got to the manger before the baby was born. The mother had question after question after question. And there were angels. Real angels. Not little children in the fourth grade. There were true celebrations, but only Mary and Joseph joined them until shepherds, the lowest of the lowest, came to honor the new born baby. Nobodies lower than the nobodies came to celebrate. That was it. The first Christmas.

And then there was Luke. Do you really think that Luke, the medical doctor, chemist, scientist researcher, really knew what he was doing when he drew his conclusions for all the intellects he sought to convince that Jesus really is the Son of the true God? Luke told the people he was seeking to reach that Jesus truly is worthy of trust in Him for eternal life. Do you think he realized that he was writing about the first Christmas when he wrote of the coming of the wise men probably two years later? That he would be read more than 2,000 years later by people who believed in Jesus as well as scores who had not yet trusted Him for eternal life? And that scores of them would trust Jesus for eternal life because of what he wrote? Do you think that he knew that Christmas would ever exist? Yet all of this is true because of this medical doctor-researcher who gave up everything to travel with Paul from city-to-city and start churches and spread the word about Jesus throughout the Roman Empire. But it all started in a manger in Bethlehem according to the line of David as decreed by a command from Caesar who thought he was in charge and had no idea that baby Jesus had just left His throne and become one of us.

Think of it. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Jesus in a crib as Matthew declared but headed to a cross. The first Christmas. First a crib. but eventually a cross

Yet there's more.

What must it have been like to have the three of them together? Confusion in their hearts. Questions in their minds. Confusion on their lips. Corruption from their past (Joseph and David). Interruption in their plans. Direction in their decisions.  Isolation in their lives. Conclusion in their plans. Restoration back home. Clarification in their lives finally. All of this was the first Christmas although it a lasted at least two years.

The first Christmas was followed by life as it should be with amazing events in Passover times in Jeru- alem and a business it appears as a carpenter in Nazareth, then disciple making in Galilee and Jerusalem followed by the cross. Certainly none of this made sense to Mary the mother who had strange messages from angels who suddenly appeared and then disappeared. And the cross! How could this be? The birth and the events in His life were confusing at best! But the cross!  What can you do with any of this? How can this be? Not only to His mother but to His men who gave up everything to follow Him!

He goes from a crib to a cross! What is all of this about? And what does this mean for His followers? His teaching makes greater sense than anything they had ever heard. Why is all of this happening? And we have the same question: why did this happen?

For one reason: so we who know Him can serve as disciples by living the Jesus way according to John 13-16 and by forming disciples to serve Him.

But now I want to go from this first Christmas as Jesus was on His way from the crib to the cross to the night before He was on the cross as Jesus focused on three realities that are the core of our lives if we know Him and grasp His key commands. After all, ultimately this is what Christmas is all about.

I turn to the first command He gave as the core of His way of life.

Love (John 13:36-37; 15:12-14))

In John 15 He repeated what He had already said before when He was interrupted because it is the essence of how Jesus wants us to live, so I want to make this the core of 2025.

In 2025 the Lord reminds us of the new commandment He gave to us just before He was crucified:   love one another, even as I have loved you. By this all men will know you are my disciples (13:36-37).

And This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you (15:12).

He doesn't give this until the traitor is gone and the loyal are alone with him.

This love is a special kind of love, a love that we have for all who have trusted in Him and want to live His kind of life. And it is a command. Jesus is very serious about the love He wants us to have.

We live together.

We struggle together.

We learn together.

We support each other together.

We grow together.

We pray together

We must be willing to do what Jesus did: give up our lives to meet all believer's needs as we know them.

This is what love is all about and this is what the Christian life is all about.

Abide

There is only one way we can do this as branches dependent on the Vine, and that is through Christ in us because only He can do this. He commands us to love twice and He tells us to love each other the way He has loved us. Who can love His way? Nobody can love His way in himself. We can only do this if we are radically desperately dependent on Him. He lives in us through the Holy Spirit who enables us to act the way Jesus acts. And that calls for radical, desperate dependence. This is why Jesus tells us about the Holy Spirit and His enablement to bear fruit through us. To abide in Him is far more than to have peace in Him. We have peace because we are productive and effective as a result of the Spirit's enablement. To abide in Him is to have peace through Him but to have enablement we must be productive by bearing fruit through the Spirit.

This also calls for us to give up our interests and seek the interests of those around us. This what love for each other is all about. Here we have a call for us to be aware of the needs of others and to know how we can meet those needs so we can be fruitful branches as we have love for each other.

Pray

Prayer is the third reality we must pursue, the way Jesus pursued obedience and love for others. While Jesus spent much of His time teaching and discipling He also spent significant time in prayer.

During His last night on earth all four writers recorded His time in prayer, but John told us about how He prayed as they came into the Garden in John 17. John spoke the most about this as he told us of the Lord's prayer for Himself, His disciples, and us. Clearly prayer was a major part of His life and His death. He even prayed on the cross if you realize that prayer is simply conversation with one calling out to God. Certainly Jesus did that to His Father from the cross. John recorded His words to His mother and His friend, and while this was not a prayer in the truest sense of the word by any means it was action that only the Father could enable those addressed to accomplish. But It is finished was prayer, not a request but a declaration that informed the Father that He had accomplished the aim they had agreed on when He left heaven to come to earth.

How great it would be if we could have an aim that we and the Lord had established and finished so you could say It is finished. That is far greater than a budget or a deal or a struggle as significant as any of them might be.

Just remember that prayer is at the center of your life on earth as you move toward eternity even as it was in Jesus's life.

When you think about it that first Christmas is much greater than parties and cards and messages and thoughts and gifts and trees. It really is about love and abiding and prayer and ultimately the cross because while it started with the crib it inevitably led to the cross and redemption.

So I don't say Merry Christmas in 2025 as appropriate as this is in many way, because Cross Christmas is even more appropriate since that is what the crib is all about even in 2025.

Thus I say to you,

Cross Christmas--from the Crib to the Cross