A friend gave me a book of daily readings for Advent called Let Earth Receive Her King by Alistair Begg, and one interesting thought revolves around the various supernatural aspects of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
It is a tenet of the Christian faith that Christ was raised from the dead after his crucifixion. The apostle Paul even wrote to the church at Corinth, “… if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.”
He essentially said that without the resurrection, there is no Christian church. The promise He made by going to the cross was underlined when he confirmed his godhood and conquered death.
But if by faith we accept that God came to Earth as a man and rose from the dead, why is so hard to accept that the accounts of His birth are not literally true?
I sense that it’s OK to believe that things like the virgin birth, the baby in the manger, the angels and the wise men are nice stories for children and not literally true, necessarily. But why couldn’t it have happened just the way it’s described?
Angels speaking to Mary and Elizabeth and proclaiming Gloria in excelsis Deo to the shepherds, a star leading wise men across the desert — why not. It’s actually kind of an awesome thought.
