Summary
Two Births
The Advent and Christmas season opens with a pair of miraculous pregnancies—Elizabeth, old and barren, and Mary, young and a virgin—each visited by the angel Gabriel and each bearing a son whose life would change the world. John, the forerunner, prepares the way; Jesus, the Messiah, is the Way himself. Yet when the season concludes, the two births worth celebrating turn out not to be John's and Jesus's at all, but Christ's and your own.
The pivot comes in the temple, forty days after the Nativity. Mary and Joseph, devout under the Law of Moses, bring the infant Jesus for the rite of purification. There they meet Simeon, a righteous and devout man to whom the Holy Spirit had promised he would not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ. Taking the child in his arms, Simeon blesses God: "my eyes have seen your salvation… a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel" Luke 2:30-32. Then he turns to Mary with a harder word: this child is set for the falling and rising of many, a sign that will be opposed, and "a sword will pierce through your own soul also" Luke 2:34-35.
Why celebrate the birth of Jesus? Precisely because the sword does pierce. The miracle of Christmas is that God himself enters his creation as true man, born under the law, yet without the inherited darkness of the human heart. Scripture reminds us that since the days of Noah, the inclination of man's heart is evil continually Genesis 6:5, and the people who walked in darkness needed a great light to shine on them Isaiah 9:2. Jesus is born with a pure heart in order to live perfectly under the law you and I cannot keep, to resist every temptation we cannot resist, and to carry that perfect life to the cross where Mary would one day stand and watch her son die for the sin of the world.
This is what distinguishes Jesus from John. John's birth was miraculous, his ministry essential, his role as forerunner glorious—but John was a man like the rest of mankind. He was not born sinless, and he too needed a Savior. The birth we celebrate at Christmas is therefore the birth that leads to a death and a resurrection: God in the flesh, born for the express purpose of redeeming you.
And that brings us to the second birth—your birth. In the waters of Holy Baptism, the old Adam and the old Eve are drowned and a new creation rises, born of water and the Spirit, washed clean by the Word. Paul writes, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" 2 Corinthians 5:17. When we come face to face with our Savior, our inner thoughts are revealed—as Simeon foretold—and we see that there is nothing left for us to do, because Christ has done it all.
So the season's "two births" come into focus. Christ is born for you, that you might be born again in him. His incarnation leads to his cross; his cross and empty tomb lead to your baptismal font; and from those waters you rise free—no longer bound by darkness, no longer ruled by the sinful heart, but God's own child, alive in the Spirit to love him and to serve your neighbor.
Video citations
- "Two Births" 12-29-24 — If you would please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke the second chapter, if you're using a Pue edition of the Bible, this can be found on page 51 in the New Testament. Luke chapter 2. In this…