"The Child was a Gift"

Isaiah's Christmas Children: The Glory Child

"No parent, no individual parent, is identified with regard to this child and in this regard, the glory child of Isaiah 9 is the only child among all the children mentioned in Isaiah 7 through 12 so identified. No parent. No apparent parent. The intended impact of this description is to heighten the sense of the supernatural, even carrying you beyond what you may have perceived of the supernatural in the description of the Immanuel child of Isaiah 7:14. The intended impact then of this description is to heighten the sense of the supernatural and to suggest to you that the true parentage of this child is none other than God himself. The very next phrase in the verse fills out this interpretation: unto us not only is a child born, unto us a son is given. Once more the collective sense of it in the reception of the child, as if the whole nation were receiving the child as one; but likewise once more, no identifiable parent. The implication being that God is the parent and that it is he who is giving the child to the people. The child is his gift to them.

"...It has been made clear that God's people are not worthy to receive God's gift, are they? Neither are they in their own strength, capable of procuring the child or generating the child. Therefore, laid within the glory child of Isaiah 9 is the message that God's deliverance of his people will be through a child he uniquely begets—one who will be the pure embodiment of his own absolute grace and his absolute power—the manifest demonstration of both."

"...But even before you, there were the statements read out by the apostle Paul that he (this child) would be received by all Israel—that is, all Israel that is Israel; and not only by Israel, but by the nations flung far and wide. To those to whom this child has truly come, there is no question about his identity. Nor is there any question about whether their goodness or their works brought about his birth. You see how the Protestant message of salvation by grace alone must be proclaimed with the Christmas message. Do you see that no work by Israel, by a Jew—no inherent value rising from them, no inherent goodness, no work on their part laid in righteousness—could bring forth the birth of the child? The child was a gift. And as the child is a gift, so is the salvation that is to be found in him. There is no other way and there can be no other message than this. It is those people who are receiving this child on God's terms who know that the gift is all of grace and that it is all of God." -- Charles G. Dennison

Luther: Christ "grants us His birth"

"The right and gracious faith which God demands is, that you firmly believe that Christ is born for you, and that this birth took place for your welfare. The Gospel teaches that Christ was born, and that he did and suffered everything in our behalf, as is here declared by the angel: “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people; for there is born to you this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” In these words you clearly see that he is born for us.

"He does not simply say, Christ is born, but to you he is born, neither
does he say, I bring glad tidings, but to you I bring glad tidings of great
joy. Furthermore, this joy was not to remain in Christ, but it shall be to all
the people. This faith no condemned or wicked man has, nor can he have
it; for the right ground of salvation which unites Christ and the believing heart is that they have all things in common.

"...Christ’s birth can not be distributed in a material sense neither would that avail any thing; it is therefore imparted spiritually, through the Word, as the angel says, it is given to all who firmly believe so that no harm will come to them because of their impure birth. This it the way and manner in which we are to be cleansed from the miserable birth we have from Adam. For this purpose Christ willed to be born, that through him we might be born again, as he says in John 3:3, that it takes place through faith; as also St. James says in James 1:18: “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth,
that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.”

"We see here how Christ, as it were, takes our birth from us and absorbs
it in his birth, and grants us his, that in it we might become pure and holy,
as if it were our own, so that every Christian may rejoice and glory in
Christ’s birth as much as if he had himself been born of Mary as was Christ...Christ must above all things become our own and we become his...

"Therefore see to it that you do not find pleasure in the Gospel only as a
history, for that is only transcient; neither regard it only as an example, for
it is of no value without faith; but see to it that you make this birth your own and that Christ be born in you." -- Martin Luther, Christmas Day sermon, from his Wartburg Church postil, 1521-22.

Minimize Christ, get a "slap" from Santa

Slappy Holiday

From Gene Veith's World Magazine column:

"...there is more to the story of Nicholas of Myra. He was also a delegate to the Council of Nicea in a.d. 325, which battled the heretics who denied the deity of Christ. He was thus one of the authors of the Nicene Creed, which affirms that Jesus Christ is both true God and true man. And unlike his later manifestation, Nicholas was particularly zealous in standing up for Christ.

"During the Council of Nicea, jolly old St. Nicholas got so fed up with Arius, who taught that Jesus was just a man, that he walked up and slapped him! That unbishoplike behavior got him in trouble. The council almost stripped him of his office, but Nicholas said he was sorry, so he was forgiven.

The point is, the original Santa Claus was someone who flew off the handle when he heard someone minimizing Christ."