Where would we be now without the first Christmas?
2025 years ago, God became man, and it changed everything. We take the beloved manger scene for granted, but what if there was no creche with its shepherds and wise men? We might survive the absence of eggnog and mistletoe, but what about Emmanuel, the one who makes God to be “with us”?
St. Paul gives us a taste of the stark reality of life without the savior as he reminds the Ephesians of their state before baptism:
You were dead through trespasses and sins . . . following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air . . . in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. . . . dead through our trespasses. . . . having no hope and without God in the world. (Eph 2:1-5, 12)