As we continue our “What We Believe” monthly articles, December becomes most timely to talk about Jesus’ incarnation, His coming to earth as human, the real reason we celebrate Christmas. Gospel writer Luke creates a simple, yet most poetic description of Jesus’ birth, capturing the imagination of artists and all Christians, creating a visual of the moment we commonly call “The Manger Scene.”

Yet beyond the stable, cave, or animal holding area of a first century Bethlehem home in a manger of hay, wherever He was truly born into humanity, just who was this child named Jesus? Scripture teaches Jesus was both true man and true God. Although difficult to wrap our heads around this concept, its truth fits well into the structure and God’s plan for our salvation through Him. For Jesus to save us from our sins, to be the substitute and sacrifice dying for our sins, He had to have no sin of His own. No human person born of two human parents can accomplish this, as all are born into sin. In His incarnation (His becoming man from being God), Jesus has but one earthly parent, Mary. Joseph, her husband, was, for lack of a more understandable term, a surrogate father.

So how can this be? Mary became with child by the Holy Spirit, the third person of God, that Jesus (the second person of God) would be called the Son of God. Yes, this is a miracle of God! No other time in human history, in science history, has one become pregnant without human intervention. While a non-believer would write this off as fantasy, the virgin birth fits perfectly into God’s plan, who Jesus is, and the saving sacrifice He came to bring. Through this virgin birth, by the seed of the Holy Spirit, Jesus becomes true man, born of a woman, yet retains His essence as true God, the second person of the Trinity.

As true man, Jesus could be one of us, be God in the flesh for us, be a fitting, substitute in paying sins price for us. Having no sin of His own, He could take our sins upon His shoulders and offer His life to pay sin’s judgment price, that the wages of our sins is death. And God the Father, the orchestrator of this plan of salvation, was pleased to accept His Son’s sacrifice on our behalf, that believing in Him, Jesus, we are given a new and redeemed life in Him. In other words, we have the promise of eternal life, forgiven through Jesus’ shed blood.

As true God, Jesus could be found without sin, having the power to overcome sin and defeat death and the devil once and for all time. Both essences, true man and true God, were necessary for God’s plan, for God to bring salvation to us. In our churches, on Christmas, we say that salvation is born. This is Jesus, who set aside glory, set aside comfort at the right hand of God the Father, set aside His divine attributes to condescend to man and become one, to be born in a humble manger, to live among us, to be our brother, to be the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, to be God’s perfect Christmas gift to us, bringing to us the gift of forgiveness and life. God in Jesus coming as a human child at the first Christmas: this is what we believe.

To learn more about Advent and Christmas, visit one of our churches: St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fredonia (672-6731), Immanuel Lutheran Church in Gowanda (532-4342), or Trinity Lutheran Church in Silver Creek (934-2002).