Christmas means many different things to many different people, but by far the dominant element is the man whose title it bears: Jesus, the Christ. There is no greater reason to celebrate. But who is He?
In the beginning, God created only two people. A man, named Adam, and his wife, Eve, from whom we are all descended (Genesis 3:20; Acts 17:26). They inhabited a world in which God Himself declared everything "very good" (Genesis 1:31). There was no suffering, no pain, and no death. This is because, as of yet, no sin had entered the world.
But of course, we no longer live in a very good world. There is suffering, pain, and death. So where did it come from? In the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve lived, there were plenty of trees which bore all sorts of fruit. God gave Adam and Eve a command: "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17).
Unfortunately, it didn't take long for things to head South. A serpent, Satan (Genesis 3:1; Ezekiel 28:13; Revelation 12:9), tricked Eve into eating the fruit, and Adam followed suit. As He promised, the Lord delivered death, not only upon mankind, but upon the entire creation (Genesis 3:17; Romans 8:22). But He didn't just leave it there. God made a promise to Satan: "And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel." (Genesis 3:15).
This is significant. Reading it the first time around, you might not think much of it, but many have interpreted this verse (correctly, I would contend) as the first Messianic prophecy: The promise of the virgin birth. Whereas the "seed" is typically attributed to the male, this promise is that the seed of the woman would crush Satan's head.
A lot happened since then. There's a whole book about it. A collection of books really. One of those books is called Isaiah, and much like Moses did when he wrote Genesis 3:15, Isaiah also predicted that a virgin would give birth (Isaiah 7:14). 700 years later, that promise would be fulfilled in a young woman named Mary. Mary, having never slept with a man, bore a child by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). It is this birth that we celebrate at Christmas. The birth of the seed of the woman who has been promised since man fell.
But being born of a virgin is not the only thing about Jesus. What is truly amazing is why He was born. Adam brought death into the world by sinning, but Jesus never sinned, even once. But He still took the punishment for it. Right down to the thorns (Genesis 3:18; Mark 15:17), Jesus took the full punishment for sin on our behalf. Through faith in His death and resurrection, we can be reconciled to God, and have hope that when we finally die to this world, we can rise with Christ in the next.
That is certainly worth celebrating, but I want to take it a step further. The Bible says many things about the wonders of eternal life. There's a beautiful picture of it drawn in Revelation 21 and 22. But even with that description, we see that Heaven is so glorious, we can't even picture it now, nor will we really remember this world when we get there (Isaiah 64:4; 65:17; 1 Corinthians 2:9). Furthermore, Colossians 2:16-17 tells us that food, drink, festivals, new moons, and sabbaths are merely a shadow of things to come. Think about that! Everything we do at Christmas time, all the lights, the feasts, fireworks, fairs, parades, they're pathetic compared to what Christ has bought for us. We can't even picture it yet. I'd like to think I speak for us all when I say "thank you Lord. Merry Christmas."