Good News!

If Christmas doesn't do anything else, it should at the very basic level remind us of the Good News.  Not just the Biblical account of Yahushua's birth or geneo (beginning), but of the Good News that he himself preached.  In the synagogue He read the following scroll of the prophet Isaiah and finished saying this prophecy is now fulfilled in your hearing:

“The Spirit of THE LORD YAHUWAH is upon me, and because of this He has anointed me to preach The Good News to the poor; He has sent me to heal broken hearts and to proclaim liberty to captives, vision to the blind, and to restore the crushed with forgiveness,”  Luke 4:18

No human authority, government or earthy power could stop this fulfillment and it was executed with precision and completeness during Yahushua's three year ministry.  See the Jews in the first century were looking for a powerful king who would immediately free them from oppressive Roman rule.  The only problem is in their quest for political liberation, they failed to recognize their present spiritual slavery to sin and evil.  This was the Messiah's primary mission, to preach the Good News of salvation to both the materially and more importantly spiritually bankrupt of the House of Israel.

So while the Good News or Gospel is certainly about the Lord Messiah, it also is his message to his spiritual brothers and then to us.  As the apostle Paul summed it up:

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” Romans 1:16  

Now that is the power of God.  The message of salvation delivered through the one whom it would ultimately be advanced.  First the Jews were told and then it was spread to the Gentiles.  

But glory, honor, and peace, to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile:  Romans 2:10

We just can't hold that sort of good news in!  We've got to tell it because it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to become right with God through the saving power of Christ's finished work and blood.  When he said, "It is accomplished", he had done all that the Father had asked of him.  Like our Master, we can be faithful too and proclaim the good and acceptable year of the LORD while there is still time.  It won't go on forever.  So yes, rejoice this Christmas as it calls to mind the loving act of our Heavenly Father and His obedient son.  It still holds out the gift of salvation and the promise of everlasting life to those who believe.