Theology In The Christmas Carols

The story of Christmas is one of the most doctrinal sections of God’s revelation. The sentimental recalling of the Christ child’s birth points us to the fullest meaning of the Baby’s personhood. Charles Wesley laid it out clearly for us in a carol we sing each year “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail th’incarnate Deity, Pleased as men with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.” Do you get it? Jesus is God, God manifest in the flesh, fully God and fully man.

Many years ago a grandfather in the congregation I was serving at the time told me something his granddaughter, then around eight or ten years old, said. Referring to the pulpit ministry in the church. She asked something like, “They always talk about Jesus here. When are they going to talk about God?” That question represents those, and I think there are a some in the church, and many outside it, who do not get what the Bible makes plain in the Christmas passages. It’s all summed up in one scriptural name: Jesus is Emmanuel. Emmanuel means, literally, God with us. When you get that, you get Christmas!