The Christmas Gift and His Story

Photo by Dan Kiefer on Unsplash

A Gift

When some parts of the world glittered with fresh snow, when the stars shone on frozen wastelands, when princes enjoyed the warmth of a fire on the cold night…a gift was given. In a freezing cave, among piles of soiled hay, amid the raucous braying of donkeys, an Author was born. But not just an author. He was the Author…the One who started The Story of this world and made us His characters. And He entered His own book. He called Himself Joshua.

Like any well-written story, disgrace, humbleness, and adventure surrounded Joshua’s birth and growing up years. Scandalously born to a single girl (because no one believed the truth that the Author miraculously allowed her to become pregnant while still a virgin), welcomed to the world by filthy, culturally outcast shepherds, and forced to flee to a foreign country with His mother and stepfather to evade a tyrannical king’s child-massacre, marvels, unrest, and terror filled His first two years.

After the dictatorial sovereign died, His parents returned to their hometown—a shunned and castaway village—where Joshua learned His stepfather’s trade of carpentry. He chose not to keep anymore record of His life until He turned thirty years old.

A Look to the Past

Ignored by most people, a dark lord had roamed the earth since near its creation. The people knew he existed, but he left them alone. Mostly. Or so they thought. Their more immediate concern was the foreigners who assailed them throughout the centuries, and at the time of Joshua’s life, the attackers were Invader troops from the West.

But Joshua knew that greater danger came from Lucifer, the silent lord. When the Author first outlined the plot for His Story, Lucifer—one of Joshua’s most beautiful creature-characters—insisted on being the main character, the hero of The Story. But Lucifer’s rebellious heart brought him under a curse and he became the villain, transferred from being the most beautiful to become the most terrible. Joshua banished Lucifer to a Pit surging with unquenchable fire.

Enraged, Lucifer enticed masses of the other like-creatures to follow him in rebellion against Joshua. Lucifer would destroy The Story. He could not overtake the Author by force—he was only Joshua’s creation—but he would go after what would hurt Joshua’s heart above all else. He would turn the human characters, the ones Joshua loved the most, against their Author. Why? Lucifer knew that Joshua would send all who turned against Him to the Pit through death. Not for revenge, but because His Story was never meant to house rebellion. Those with subversive hearts could not stay.

Lucifer’s plan worked. He told the people that Joshua didn’t care for them, that Joshua was withholding good things from happening in the pages of His Story. Obedience and love to Joshua meant “a life chained,” Lucifer said. They may as well follow the dark lord and have the time of their life. So, day after day, for thousands of years, Lucifer dragged Joshua’s characters away to the fires of the Pit. Generation after generation were born as traitors, their disloyal blood passed down by their fathers. The people could not turn away. They did not want to. Those that tried could only offer pitiful good works to try to repay the debt of their betrayal, but it would never be enough. Treason could not be undone. Their passion and love once held for Joshua faded away, and their hearts became dead to Him.

Joshua would not leave His characters to die. He promised to provide a Way to reconcile their relationship. He would pay the price for their treachery. He would give Himself as a gift, live a life void of treason by having no blood father, and resurrect their hearts. And so, on a frigid night that would later be called Christmas, in a filthy stable and through a virgin, the Author silently entered His story-world.

A Plot to Love and a Plot to End

When He went public at thirty years old, He kept His speaking style to storytelling, all the while living His life in a way that followed His ancient plotline to build the Way. Joshua befriended twelve men who went with Him everywhere.

The religious and political leaders looked down on Him for the people He chose to love. He used His authorial power, not for His own gain, but to reverse disease and heal the people. He lived homeless, ate His meals with tax-collectors (today we’d probably call them IRS agents), prostitutes, and the poor. He crossed the bounds of racism and talked with spurned foreigners. Though He socialized with bad people, He didn’t follow them in His actions. He kept Himself full of integrity. He encouraged them to follow His example and love Him because that was the goal of His Story: to build a family from all the characters in His Book that would love and honor Him as the Author like originally planned.

It wasn’t a selfish goal. After all, He made the characters. The characters were His creation, for Him to do with what He pleased. But only some recognized and chose to believe Him as The Author, even when He clearly stated who He was.

Most of the people just thought He was a good man, one who took the time to be with them and care for them. They thought perhaps He would save them from the oppressive Invaders. The religious leaders noticed Joshua’s increasing popularity. They saw the crowds grow around Him every day for three years. They saw their power slipping away to this young, homeless, nobody-carpenter-man who lived among immoral, common people. It had to end.

Lucifer also watched. The people were beginning to do what Joshua wanted. They were beginning to resurrect, to trust that Joshua had a way to make them whole. Yes, Lucifer thought along with the religious leaders. It had to end.

A Gift Betrayed

A shadow stirred in the trees, at the foot of the hill. Joshua looked over to His three friends, sleeping on the ground. A little further away slept eight others. The twelfth, Judas, had left during dinner earlier that night.

Joshua wished His friends would come be with Him; He had already asked them twice. Perhaps if they knew what was coming, they would have tried harder to stay awake.

He knew what was coming; He had written it, of course. But that didn’t make it easier.

Shouting. Torches. A mass of men charged up the garden hill. Joshua turned to His sleeping friends and shook them. It was time for the climax, and He knew it. Let it come.

“Wake up,” He said, an urgency filling His voice.

One of the men, Peter, sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked toward the crowd. At the head of the mob, a familiar figure stood: Judas.

“It’s alright, Joshua,” Peter said. “It’s just Judas.”

Judas stepped toward Joshua. A bit of sweat glimmered on his upper lip, but he met his friend’s gaze and smiled. He reached out and hugged Joshua.

“Friend,” Judas murmured.

“That’s the signal!” someone yelled. At that, the crowd erupted, and they rushed Joshua.

“Run!” Peter shouted. “We’re under attack!” He whipped a sword from his side and slashed it at the nearest man, chopping off his ear.

“Peter!” A fire flashed in Joshua’s eyes. “That’s enough.” And with the power that only an Author could possess, He healed the man’s ear.

Two or three men seized Joshua by the arms and shoved Him down the hill. Joshua said nothing, His heart beating hard. This was His plan, He reminded Himself. He glanced around for His friends and caught a glimpse of Peter’s coat as he whisked into the shadow of a tree.

Betrayed. Joshua thought. Again. And Alone.

A Gift Destroyed

In a courtroom, Joshua stood before the chief of the people, one of the religious leaders who hated Him. The room echoed with shouts of everyone trying to find some reason to get rid of the young carpenter permanently.

Finally, someone remembered something Joshua had said. “He claimed to be the Author of this story-world. He’s trying to take the power for Himself, like Lucifer did!”

It was true. Joshua had claimed that—but only because He was indeed the Author, not because He was trying to steal another’s power.

It was enough, however, and the chief leader condemned Him to death. After a few more hearings with other leaders, including an Invader governor, soldiers beat Joshua to a pulp, spat on Him, and crucified Him on a cross.

Joshua died. Not passed out. Not slipped into a coma. He died.

A few, brokenhearted friends placed His body in a cave for burial. Their hearts ached with regret, especially Peter’s. He had left his best friend to die alone. They didn’t understand. They had hoped Joshua would fix the Story of the world and drive out the Invaders. Their grasp was too small. So accustomed to Lucifer’s presence in their lives, they still saw the Invaders as their biggest problem. They didn’t understand that THIS was the price—the price of their treason. The punishment for their betrayal. THIS is what it would take to resurrect their dead hearts.

A Gift Restored

Three days later, some of Joshua’s close, women friends went to the gravesite to visit His body. But only an empty cave greeted them. Suddenly, one of Joshua’s creatures—the same kind as Lucifer, but one who had stayed faithful—stood before the women. He told them the impossible. He told them that Joshua was alive. Confirming the creature’s words, Joshua appeared to His friends, including Peter, later that day.

Yes, Joshua had died. But because He never betrayed a soul, because He lived perfectly faithful, His willingness to take the punishment for His people’s treason was enough. It reversed the curse of death and the Pit of fire. Yes, the two still existed, but Joshua had made a way of rescue. And He offered it to everyone at no cost to them. 100% free.

All who believed that He was the Author and trusted that His sacrifice was the only ransom enough to save them could escape the curse. That simple belief would give them the power, with His daily help, to turn away from their treacherous lifestyle and live reconciled with Joshua. They could pass through the door of death, not to the Pit of fire, but to a restored story-world of eternal life, a life of spent with the Author in peace.

Joshua merely asked the characters to tell His Story to the characters who don’t know it, to give them a chance to believe, until He at last writes The End.

Merry Christmas!

…

He was the Author…the One who started The Story of this world and made us His characters. And He entered His own book.

…