Christmas Long, Long Ago
John 1:1, 14
Introduction
The Christmas season is in full swing, and you can tell it the moment you step into our home. Our mantle is covered with greenery, our tree is standing tall in front of the French doors that lead to the deck out back, and our living room has been completely rearranged (to make space for all the decorations we’ve gathered through the years).
You might say, we’ve made room for Christmas.
This is just a part of our annual routine. Something I’ve come to both love and despise. I love the beauty of the decor, but I always agonize over crawling in the attic to retrieve the boxes and storage containers that hold the decorations and precious memories of Christmases past. But once the boxes are pulled out and the containers opened, the joy quickly returns. Every year, as we unpack the old ornaments and settle into familiar traditions, I’m reminded that Christmas has a way of carrying us back — back to our childhood, back to past moments, back to days when the kids were small, and back to those precious memories of long ago.
But as nostalgic as Christmas may seem today, the original Christmas story reaches back much further than our memories. It took place long ago. Long before the shepherds looked up and saw a sky filled with angels, long before Mary and Joseph traveled the dusty road to Bethlehem, long before a manger held the newborn King…there was Christ!
And that’s because Christmas did not begin in Bethlehem. Christmas began in eternity!
And if we are going to fully embrace the wonder of Christmas and Christ’s birth, we must go back to Christmas long, long ago.
Transition
Today I want us to explore the wonder of Christmas by looking at John’s gospel. It’s here that we find a reminder of the true beginnings of Christmas. So, if you have your Bible, turn with me to John chapter 1.
As John opens his Gospel, he does so with a very different approach than all of the other gospel writers.
Rather than begin with genealogies, or prophetic announcements, or even angelic visits, John chooses to reach back beyond time and space and tells us,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” — John 1:1 (NIV)
With just a single sentence, John opens a window into a time, before time. He calls us to step back into eternity past. He wants us to understand that the infant lying in the manger is actually the eternal Son of God, one who has always existed.
And if we want to worship Him fully,we must begin where the Bible begins.
So today, I challenge you to:
1. Lift Your Eyes to the Christ Who Has Always Been
Look again at John’s opening line in chapter 1. He writes,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” — John 1:1 (NIV)
With these words, John declares right from the start, that long before He took His first breath in Bethlehem, that Jesus breathed life into Adam and all living things. He wants us to understand that before Mary held Him in her arms, that He (Jesus) held the entire universe in His hands.
As the apostle Paul would later describe in his letter to the Colossian believers, Jesus was the creator and sustainer life. Listen to Colossians 1:16-17,
16 “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” — Colossians 1:16-17 (NIV)
This is the same message of mystery and majesty that John describes in His telling of the Christmas story.
He states emphatically, Jesus was “with God” and at the same time, He “(the Word) was God” (John 1:1).
Now, I know this sounds crazy, but that doesn’t lessen its truthfulness. Before time began, Jesus was with God and at the same time, He is God.
And what’s more — John will go on to say that He (the creator and Son of God), left the expanse of the eternity to step into time and space and come close to bring us hope.
So before we stare at the manger, or picture shepherds and angels gathering in Bethlehem, Scripture calls us to look up — because:
Christmas doesn’t begin with the birth of Jesus, it begins with the eternal, pre-existence of Jesus.
This means Jesus is not just a part of the Christmas story. He’s the author of the Christmas story.
As A. W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
Christmas is meant to shape what comes into our minds when we think about Christ.
And when we look back through the Old Testament with this understanding, we begin to see Christ everywhere.
- We see him all the way back in Genesis as He walks with Adam and Eve in the Garden (in Genesis 3). And again in when He speaks with Abraham under the night sky (in Genesis 18). And we see Him wrestling with with Jacob all night long (in Genesis 32).
- And what we find in Genesis, we can find throughout each book of the Old Testament. Just consider the story told in Daniel 3, where Jesus shows up in the most unlikely of places — in the midst of the fiery furnace as He stood alongside Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
- Or, what about the divine visitation in Judges 13, when the Lord appeared to Manoah and his wife (who had been barren). And he spoke to them, assuring them that they bare a child, a Son who would be used to begin the deliverance of Israel from hands of the Philistines. After this encounter, Manoah confessed, “we have seen God”. And shortly after, Samson was born.
My point is simple — Christ did not begin in Bethlehem; Bethlehem was just the place where He chose to step into human history!
When I was a kid, I used to love pulling out the old photo albums that my mother kept. They were thick and heavy, filled with pictures for long ago and far away. I remember seeing a picture of my mom’s daddy — a tall slender man, a man weathered by handwork and difficult days. He held a strong resemblance to my uncles, but I never met him. He died when my mom was just 12 years old. Even so, I loved looking back in time and seeing a man who made my story possible. Seeing him made all the stories I had heard about him seem even more real.
In much the same way, Christmas stirs within me a sense of awe. When I recognize Christ’s pre-incarnate appearances in the Old Testament, it makes the stories of His time on earth in the gospels even more real!
That’s why John speaks of His eternal existence, because it invites us to look back and see Him as He truly is: eternal, glorious, uncreated, and sovereign.
That’s Christmas long, long ago. It begins before time with the Christ who has always been.
And, if it begins with the Christ who always was, the next question becomes:
What did Christ come to do?
Which leads us to the heart of the Christmas story — and my next challenge for you. Which is:
2. Stand in Awe Of Christ’s Incarnation
John continues this story in verse 14, when he writes,
“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” — John 1:14 (NIV)
I have to admit, those ten words blow my mind. They tell a story that I struggle to understand. For, how can the God of the universe, the Creator of all things, come and inhabit flesh and bone? How is it that God can become man?
I can’t explain it — I can only attest to it. And that’s why I invite you to join me this season and STAND IN AWE at the incarnation of Christ! Because, in this verse, John connects the wonder and majesty of God (and all of His greatness), with the miracle of virgin birth.
The incarnation is important because it is the foundation of our salvation and the clearest revelation of God’s heart toward us.
Without the incarnation, we would have no Savior who is both fully God and fully human, able to bridge the gap our sin created. In Jesus, God comes close enough to rescue us, not from a distance, but by stepping into our world and taking our place. The incarnation shows that God does not leave us to struggle alone; He enters our pain, shares our humanity, and makes redemption possible through His perfect life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection. It also means that when we look at Jesus, we see exactly what God is like. In the incarnation, God makes Himself known, accessible, and near, offering hope, forgiveness, and eternal life to anyone who believes.
Through the incarnation of Christ, the eternal became temporal as the Creator stepped into His own creation.
The One who breathed galaxies into existence borrowed oxygen from Mary (His earthly mother) as He grew within her womb.
When the early church father (Augustine) tried to describe it, he said, “(Christ) was created of a mother whom He created.”
Consider that. The child Mary held in her arms was the same God who formed Mary in her mother’s womb.
That’s the story of Christmas. That’s the story of God’s glory and greatness wrapped up in the frame of humanity.
And what a step it was for God to walk out of eternity and into the confines of a first century world. It was nothing short of astonishing. For God, in all of His divinity and royalty entered the world in the lowliness of a newly married, blue-collar, meager income home. The One robed in divine glory took on the limitations of infancy, placing Himself in the care of ordinary people with ordinary means. It is a breathtaking reminder that the majesty of God is never threatened by humility, and His glory is most clearly seen in the places we least expect.
I know it’s easy for us to romanticize the manger. We picture the soft lighting, the peaceful animals, the clean straw, and the halos that make everything look perfect. But the real scene was nothing like that. It was rough. It was earthy. It was humble. That stable wasn’t sanitized, and Mary and Joseph weren’t polished saints. The first Christmas smelled far more like a barn than a cathedral. And into that kind of setting, a place no earthly king would ever choose, came the King of kings.
Years ago, Max Lucado wrote, “The maker of the stars would sleep under them.”
And that line has stayed with me because it captures what John is telling us. The eternal Christ did not simply visit humanity — He immersed Himself in our experience. He took on flesh. He moved into our world. And He voluntarily chose to walk among sinners, sufferers, and skeptics alike.
This is why thinking biblically about Christmas matters.
If we settle for nostalgia, we miss the miracle.
Christmas is not merely a charming nativity scene; it is the staggering truth that God became man. The Almighty arrived in humility. The eternal stepped into time. The King descended to a cradle — fully knowing the cradle would one day give way to a cross. And the cross was the reason He came!
So if the eternal Christ became flesh and stepped into our story, then the question becomes:
Why? Why did He do it?
What was His grand plan? What was He hoping to accomplish by entering our world?
The answer is, to redeem us. To pay the high price for our salvation (a price we couldn’t pay). And that brings us to the final challenge today. And it’s this:
3. Celebrate the God Who Came to Redeem Us
Again, “Why did He come?”
Well, John doesn’t leave us guessing. He tells us (again and again), that Jesus stepped into our world for one breathtaking purpose. He came to save!
In John 1 he quotes John the Baptist who when speaking with his followers, pointed to Jesus and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” — John 1:29 (NIV)
In John 3:17 he says,
“God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” — John 3:17 (NIV)
In John 10:10, he quote Jesus as saying,
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” — John 10:10 (NIV)
And in John 10, Jesus went on to reveal his ultimate purpose, when He said,
“I lay down My life for the sheep.” — John 10:15 (NIV)
So, why did He do it? Because we needed redeeming.
We needed someone to pay the high price for our salvation, a price we could not pay. And Jesus came, as God in the flesh, as the Light in our darkness, as the Savior of the world, to do exactly that.
He came to save!
Paul writes about this in Galatians 4:4 and says,
“When the set time had fully come, God sent His Son… to redeem those under the law.” — Galatians 4:4–5 (NIV)
Those words remind us that Christmas is not simply about God coming near — it is about God coming near with purpose.
Jesus did not enter the world to be admired. He entered the world to be offered. He did not come to give us a holiday. He came to give us hope. He did not come to make life easier. He came to make salvation possible.
That’s the good news of Christmas long, long ago. In the person of Jesus, the eternal Christ came near. He came to redeem us. He came to rescue us. And He came with a promise to one day, bring us home.
And here’s what I want you to understand, if Jesus could enter the brokenness of this world, then He can enter the brokenness of your life. If He could step into the mess of the manger, He can step into the mess of your circumstances.
That’s the good news of Christmas! And when you see Christmas this way — not just as a moment in Bethlehem, but as a mission birthed in eternity, then the whole season takes on new meaning.
And in light of this truth, in light of the purpose and promise of Christmas, our final challenge is simple: We must respond! We must choose to:
Celebrate the God who came to redeem us!
Conclusion:
As we close this morning, I want to return to that place we began — acknowledging that Christmas began long, long ago. It’s a story about the incarnation of an eternal God.
So, as we stand at the edge of this Christmas season, I want to remind you that the incarnation is not just a doctrine to affirm; it is a reality to experience. It’s the story of the eternal God stepping into time and space. It’s the story of the limitless One wrapping Himself in human flesh.
The Holy One entered our world marked by sin, sorrow, and struggle. And He did it for you.
So this year, let your heart bow before more than a nativity scene. Bow before the eternal Christ who became flesh. Bow before the Redeemer who entered your story. Bow before the King who came near.
This is why Christmas matters. This is why we gather. This is why we celebrate. Because when you see Christmas not merely as a moment in Bethlehem, but as a mission birthed in eternity, it changes everything. The season becomes more than lights and songs and traditions. It becomes the story of a God who came close… and still comes close.
So today, lift your eyes. Open your heart. Let the reality of the incarnation wash over you again. The Savior has come. He still comes. And He will come again.
Closing Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for Christmas long, long ago — for the eternal Christ who existed before all things and chose to enter our world in perfect humility. Thank You that the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. Open our eyes to see Jesus clearly this season, not only as the baby in the manger but as the eternal Lord who came to redeem us. Fill our hearts with worship, our homes with peace, and our lives with Your joy. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.