In any case, the name “Michaelmas” meant “Michael sent,” just as “Christmas” means “Christ sent.” It is very probable that Michael was the “angel of the Lord” (Luke 2:9) who was sent from heaven to announce the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. The Feast of Michaelmas thus may well have originated to commemorate this coming of Michael and the angels to welcome Jesus at His human birth.
This date would be just days before the great Feast of Tabernacles, which the pre-exilic Israelites observed each fall in gratitude for the annual harvest, with each family dwelling for a time in a tent, or “tabernacle.” When John wrote that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), he did not use the usual Greek word for “dwell.” Instead, he said, literally, that the Word (that is, the Creator) “tabernacled” among us for a time. It was as though He had come into the world at just the appropriate time for the joyful Feast of Tabernacles, as Michael and the angels sang of “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10)!
As glorious as the birth of Christ may have seemed, however, this was not His incarnation. He had already been “made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7) nine months earlier, when He created a body for himself and took up His residence in Mary’s womb. That was the time when “the Word was made flesh!”
And so it may be wonderfully significant that the real “Christmas” (i.e., “Christ sent”), when the Christ was sent from His throne in heaven to enter a “tabernacle” of flesh, would have been nine months earlier than “Michaelmas,” when Michael and the angels were sent to announce His birth. But that brings us back to December 25 again! The actual number of days between the two dates is 278, which is the ideal period of human gestation.
Whether or not these inferences are correct (and, remember, no one really knows when Christ was born), they at least yield a greater appreciation of His miraculous conception! How appropriate it would be for Him to enter the world right at the season of darkest and longest night, for He would come as “the light of the world” (John 8:12) to bring “life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). Then, at “Christmas” time, we can remember and commemorate with deep thanksgiving (not with Saturnalian revelry and pagan greed) the amazing Christmas gift of God himself, when “God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9)!
3. Why Did the Creator Become Man?
No question that begins with “Why?” can be answered scientifically. Such questions can be answered only theologically, and that means they can only be truly answered from the written Word of God, the Bible. And this greatest of all questions has the most wonderful of all answers!
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17).
When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law (Gal. 4:4–5).
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15).
But that is not all, of course. His first coming, followed by His sacrificial death, bodily resurrection, and glorious ascension, is a prophetic promise of His second coming.
At His first coming, He “tabernacled” among us for a little while; at His second coming, there will be “a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: For the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:3–4). “And there shall be no night there . . . for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 22:5).
How infinitely sad it is that so many today reject or ignore such a gracious, loving, holy, powerful Creator/Redeemer. Not only do they miss all the true meaning and blessing of Christmas now, but, unless they respond to Him in repentance and faith, they will be everlastingly separated from Him in the glorious eternal ages to come.
Creation and the Cross
Thus, the Creator who has become Savior will also be consummator and eternal sovereign. The coming of the Creator into the world — both for His human incarnation and for His final, everlasting reign — comprises all the motivation and power for Christian faith and life. But to understand the meaning of His coming, one must first understand and believe the record of His primeval work of creation and man’s terrible rebellion against Him, followed by the curse.
At creation, the Lord looked forward to the Incarnation. At the Incarnation, He had to anticipate the Cross. Then, on the Cross, He looked beyond to the crown! The eternal Word, by whom all things were made, was himself made flesh (John 1:1–3, 14), when He came into the world that He had made. Thus did creation foretell Christmas, and Christmas fulfill creation!
The word “Christmas,” in its primary sense, means “Christ-sent,” or “Christ’s Mission” (the suffix mas is derived ultimately from the Latin mittere, “to send”). He came as God’s greatest missionary, manifesting the love of God toward us, “because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).
But this required the Cross, and so He “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). Nevertheless, He, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2), and, therefore, He will some day be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords.
One of the most poignantly sad verses in all the Bible is John 1:10. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” How could it possibly be that men and women, lovingly formed and commissioned by their maker to enjoy productive and happy lives in a world of beauty and fullness, could then turn on Him and refuse His loving care and guidance?
Yet that is what Adam and Eve did even though they had walked with Him and talked with Him in the beautiful garden that He had planted for them. Worse, that is what the whole of humanity did when God the Creator eventually came into the world again, this time only to be despised and crucified by the ones He loved. But, of course, those were cruel days, when people were still brutish, and ignorant, caring little for the grace of life, steeped in the carnality of pagan religion and unaware of their long-forgotten maker. If only He had waited until our 20th century to come into the world, when the marvels of modern science and communication, culture and education, would have spread the joyful news quickly all over the world!
But, then, as one takes a closer look at the pseudo-intellectual arrogance of the establishment scientists, the skeptical bias of the communications media, the depravity of modern pseudo-intellectual humanistic culture, and the anti-creationist mindset of the educators, it becomes obvious that Christ would be even more vehemently and viciously repudiated in the modern world than He was in the ancient world.
As a matter of fact, He will be coming again one day into the world that was made by Him, and the world will indeed know Him this time — not as a loving Savior, but as an offended and wrathful Creator and judge! “God that made the world and all things therein . . . hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:24, 31).
Until He comes again, however, this is still the age of grace and there is still the wonderful Christmas message of salvation to all who will hear. The great Creator has become the incarnate Word, and the Savior of men. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:11–12).
Christmas is thus only one stage, a preparatory stage, in