If your family read the crucifixion story every year before opening your presents, you may have been a fundamentalist. For to a fundamentalist, the Incarnation is often seen as little more than the first step on the road to Calvary.  For unto us a Son is given and his name shall be called Doomed, Condemned, Destined for Destruction. He was born to die.

But we do our Savior a great injustice if we give the season a tragic tone as if this Baby should be mourned as merely mortal. Consider too the years of his humanity as a child, his miracles, his compassion, his wisdom, his teachings of love for others, his laughter and tears and hunger and weariness experienced as a God who condescended to become a man and walk among us. He was born to Live.

And yes, he was betrayed and mocked and falsely accused and beaten and crucified…but the story doesn’t end there either! For of his own will he defeated death and rose from the grave, comforting his grieving friends with words of Everlasting Life. He was born to Live.

Remember the words of his promise that he will never leave us or forsake us and that he is that friend who is closer than a brother. After our years of struggle and pain are ended we too will live with him in an eternity where there will be no darkness or pain or dying ever again. In him we will finally be truly alive. He was born to Live.

Dear heart, if you want to remember the Reason for the Season as you  gather on Christmas Day this year, do not mourn as if Christ’s life was only given to be consumed in the tragedy of his death. Read instead  these words…”Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen.”

He was born to Live.