Fully Divine: Peace Through Christ
Christmas Letters: Part 4
December 21, 2025
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the one who is first over all creation, because all things were created by him: both in the heavens and on the earth, the things that are visible and the things that are invisible…
… He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the one who is firstborn from among the dead so that he might occupy the first place in everything.
~ Colossians 1:15-16a, 18
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Excerpts adapted from The Christmas Letters, by Magrey R. DeVega.
Throughout the Old Testament, God was revealed to the Israelites in visible ways. God walked in the garden with Adam and Eve. God spoke to Moses through a burning bush and led the people of Israel through the wilderness in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. But in this hymn, Paul takes God’s self-revelation to a whole new level. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Everything we need to know about God can be seen most directly in this singular human life.
The letters we have looked at this Advent were written before the gospel accounts, and Mark, the earliest gospel, does not include a nativity story. When the author of Matthew adapts his own telling, and later the writers of Luke and John, they connect Jesus’ birth to the signs of divinity recognized by the ancient world. Whereas the mother of Alexander the Great was presumably impregnated by Zeus, so Mary conceived by Divine action alone. Just as a bright star shown to mark the birth of Augustus Caesar, we get a star and a shy full of shining angels at Jesus’ birth. And everyone who encounters the Christ child is transformed by his presence, from hopelessness into hope, from fear into courage, and from darkness into light.
The Christmas story is not just about the physical birth of a baby in Bethlehem. It is about the first over all creation entering into creation to establish God’s reign over every other ruler on earth. No matter what changes and challenges came their way, this Christmas message assures them of God’s faithfulness.
How is this message transforming you?
