December 21, 2025 — Osaka Church
Christ is born!
This world is quite polluted. We who live in it are not particularly clean either. It would be more accurate to say we are extremely dirty.
But even so, when we see a bird chirping in the treetops or a baby smiling innocently, our hearts are filled with a love beyond reason for this world and human life.
This is because this world and human life were originally good gifts from God.
But humans have ruined these wonderful gifts. When we get a slight stain on a brand new piece of clothing or a small scratch on a shiny new car, we are overcome with sadness, as if the original beauty and brilliance have been lost forever. We tend to just let things get dirty and scratched.
The same thing happened with this world and human life, which God gave to humans. The sadness brought about by Adam and Eve’s small mistake decayed into despair. We live our lives sulking and apathetic, accepting that “this is just how life is.”
It was in the midst of a world like this, and for us, that Christ, God incarnate, was born.
The Lord was not only born in the small town of Bethlehem in Palestine 2,000 years ago. He is continually born again and again, into this filthy world and into us, the very people who have corrupted it.
This is so that God might give us His life as a “second gift,” so that we can once again receive God’s love, praise Him for the world He has given us, and enable people to once again cherish one another’s lives.
The Gospels tell us that Christ was born in a small stable on the corner of a town bustling with travelers, away from the hustle and bustle of people who had just finished their day’s work. Only a few people, along with a donkey and an ox, peered into the manger to see the newborn Son of God. It must have been a quiet night. Christmas services, amidst their splendor, somehow convey this quietness.
How many years have we shed tears over the loss of a time when life was joy, and of the life that should have been such a joy? In this silence, we must search for the infant Christ born within us. We must listen carefully. And we must rediscover the heart-wrenching sadness we feel for life, for this world, and for our own miserable state of heart, as the sadness of Christ, God, born “now” within us.
However, in reality, by that time, we will no longer only have sadness; joy will begin to grow. Christ God has promised, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” This is because He walks “with us” and “in us.”
“Peace will fall on earth…” Yes, Christ has been born as “peace” and reconciliation.
“Grace is desired by men.” …God’s grace is already offered to us one another, waiting to be received. (Luke 2:14)
Christ is born!
Glorify Him!