A Deeper Magic

There are fables and legends aplenty for Christmas, St. Nicolas, Santa Clause, flying reindeer, elves and a magical ride around the earth in one night with lots of presents and just a little coal, and POOF! you have a childhood fairy tale. The problem is that this fairy tale is just that, a tale, and once you turn four, somehow you know that there isn't a real Santa, that reindeer don't fly and Mom, Dad and the Grandparents are really responsible for all those great presents under the tree, partly cause you specifically did not ask Santa for a 6 pack of tighty whiteys. So, somehow, Christmas looses some of it's magic when you find out that the jolly man with the supersled and the cold, cold workhouse packed with elf-slaves doesn't exist.

But there is a deeper magic to Christmas, one that doesn't unravel when you gain some thinking skills. This past Sunday my pastor, Mike Coleman, preached on the truth of the biblical story of Christmas, more specifically, the story of the birth of the Christ Child. We don't know precisely when Jesus was born, but we do know about when. We have the Roman records of the census call from Caesar Augustus, we know that the census was taken around 1 AD. We don't know what month or what day he was born, but we know he was born.

The deeper magic of Jesus birth and the circumstances of his conception are such that if we pay attention, we can only stand in awe. Or bow down in awe. In the very begining, at the creation, evil magic crept in to spoil everything. Even then the deeper magic of redemption was at work, the deeper magic was there all the time. God became man retaining his perfect holiness so that he could reconcile a wicked people to be his own. It happened at the right time and in the right location. Magic.