For this reason I bow my knees before the Father… so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Ephesians 3:14-17

The night was dark and still when Jesus participated in a clandestine meeting with one of the religious leaders of His community, a man named Nicodemus. During that short conversation, Jesus invited Nicodemus into a new relationship with God when He said, “You must be born again” (John 3:7).

Nicodemus recognized how impossible it was to do what Jesus asked, but then Jesus made it possible when He uttered those well-known words from John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…”

Christmas is all about new beginnings and new life. It’s about a baby born in Bethlehem so you and I can be born again. It’s about the author of life submitting to death on the cross so you and I can live.

When the Spirit creates faith in our hearts through baptism and through the power of His Word, we are truly born again. Praise God! What once was dead now lives in Christ!

At Christmas we celebrate both new life in the manger and new life in our hearts. In fact, we could say that what we celebrate at Christmas is not only that Jesus was born, but that He was born again – in you, and in me, and in every heart in which He dwells.

One of my favorite lines of that beloved carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, is when we sing, “Be born in us today.” Please pray with me this week that Jesus would be born again in all of us – in our church, in our homes, and in our hearts – today.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Immanuel.