Happy Christmas. Nearly everyone knows that the true meaning of Christmas isn’t about Santa and Rudolph the Reindeer and Jingle Bells and buying lots and lots of stuff at the shopping centre. No, everyone knows that the true meaning of Christmas is about the baby Jesus and nativity scenes and Mary and Joseph and angels and shepherds and cute sheep and donkeys and a manger and carols by candlelight.
But why was Jesus born in the first place? Why did he come to earth? This is what he said in response to Pontius Pilate’s questioning: “The reason I was born and the reason I came into the world, was so that I could give evidence about the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate responded with a rhetorical and probably cynical question, “What is truth?” It’s a question that a lot of people ask.
Most people seem to think that the Christian point of view sees truth as being something completely impersonal and objective, but that is not what the Bible actually says. In fact, truth is subjective, but the subject of the truth is not me and it’s not you. It’s Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” So when he said the reason he came into the world was to give evidence about the truth, he was saying that he was giving evidence about himself. God came to the world in the person of Jesus to reveal himself to us, and that’s what Christmas is really about.