Day 1 (The Twelve Days of Christmas)

John 3:16

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

The first sixteen verses of Matthew 1 detail the genealogy of Jesus.

Starting with Abraham, father of Isaac, we move through 41/42 (depending on scholarly interpretation) generations to reach Jesus.

Over forty generations.

Can you date your history back forty generations?

I certainly can’t.

But Jesus’ is so important that both Matthew and Luke took the time to do so. And while I won’t do a deep dive on it, one thing we always need to be reminded of is that Jesus’ genealogy is made up of imperfect people. People who submitted to sin, greed, selfishness, and darkness. People who were human, who gave into human temptations and made big human mistakes.

And yet, they led to Jesus.

They are part of his story, and when we think about it, part of ours, too.

They all act as a reminder that God knows we’re human—he knows we will give into those temptations and make mistakes, he knows we’re not perfect and never will be, and thus his love is not offered as a bargain for perfection, but as a gift in spite of its impossibility.

The Christmas story tells of Jesus’ birth, of every prophecy from the Old Testament coming to fruition. Like Isaiah 7:14 which says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.”

Jesus was the one people were waiting for.

Luke 19:10 says he came to “seek and save the lost.”

John 1:29 says he “took away the sins of the world.”

Reading these verses I am in awe, overwhelmed really, because when I read sweeping phrases like these (“the lost” and “the world”) my mind conjures up images of many, and I am reminded how much pain Jesus must have endured to save us—to save the world—to pay for all of our sin.

But something that’s important to remember this Christmas season is that Jesus came and died for individuals. There was no generality to his actions, no blurring together of faces or lives. No one forgotten or swept up in the numbers.

Jesus came for you. For me.

We are the other one in this Christmas season.

One that God thought of long before we were born.

One that God sent his son to die for.

One that God listens to, understands, and loves deeply.

So when we hear that familiar story this year—of Mary holding the swaddled baby with Joseph close by, of the angels proclaiming the birth of the Savior, of the three wiseman bringing gifts—remember that all of that happened not just for “people”, not just for “the world” but for you. Because God has a purpose for you, because God loves you.

Jesus, God’s one and only son, was sent to save the one and only you.