Our Christmas Story

• Tosh Miller

In good stories, there is a “story arc.” This helps us, as the readers, to process what is happening in a way that makes sense to us and helps us to recognise the main plot points, characters, and feel the tension as the story builds. A good story creates tension and then resolves that tension in the resolution.

Christmas celebrates the story of Christ. We are meeting our hero for the first time. Christmas is rightly one of the biggest holidays that we as Christians can celebrate. But Christmas is one piece of the puzzle that is the story God is telling.

Traditionally, Advent is the season that prepares for and builds up to the coming of Christ. We open Advent calendars that give us one piece of the Nativity that we celebrate on Christmas. The baby Jesus is the final piece of the Advent puzzle opened on Christmas Eve.

The birth of Christ may be the end of our Advent puzzle, but in the story that God is telling, the end is yet to come. Jesus comes twice. He came once and was crucified to bear the punishment for your sin. But Jesus also rose again so that he may come back a second time to bring those of us who belong to him to the place where pain and death are no more.

As we prepare for Christmas this year, let’s prepare for the second coming of Christ as much as the first. Let’s remember that he took our punishment and gave us his righteousness so that we can finish the story.

When we repent daily and point others to Jesus Christ, we fulfill his command and show more people the greatest story ever told.