The Other Christmas Story by Robert Peck

A few years ago, while visiting family for the holidays, I was asked to share something at our gathering, like maybe reading the Christmas story, you know, the one depicted in every church play and recited by Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Now, maybe it’s just because I’m a guy, or I might have watched too many episodes of Tim the Toolman Taylor souping things up because he wanted “More Power,” but I don’t get stoked over babies, shepherds, and cattle lowing in a manger. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that story, and I’m all for it, and cardboard angel wings strapped to a kid for a play are cute, but I’m looking for something more, like a supernatural reality with the power to change things.

While praying about what to share, the Lord brought John chapter 1 to mind and showed me that it’s “the other Christmas story.” It’s the same story viewed from a different perspective.

The accounts in Mathew and Luke give us an earth perspective, but John gives us heaven’s perspective.

Mathew and Luke tell us what happened in the natural realm but John tells us what was happening in the spirit realm that caused what we saw in the natural realm. 

Mathew and Luke are an account of what the physical senses saw, but John is a revelation from the Spirit of what eye could not see and ear could not hear but God had prepared for those that love him (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).

The historical record of events in Mathew and Luke is true, right, and good, but John gives us the spiritual revelation of the salvation plan that heaven saw being worked out so that men could receive “POWER” to become the sons of God (John 1:12 KJV).

Let’s take a look at the spirit realm reality and power behind the Christmas story.

John 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Mathew and Luke give us Jesus’ natural genealogy, but John gives us his spiritual genealogy. Before being a baby in a manger, he already was, he was with God, and he was God.

John 1:3  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Before Jesus was born of a woman, he was the God who made the woman so he could be born as a man.

John 1:14  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The salvation plan was announced in Genesis 3:15 when God told the serpent that the woman’s seed would bruise his head. According to 1 Peter 1:20, that plan “was foreordained before the foundation of the world.” Once the word of God’s salvation plan went forth out of His mouth, it could not return to him void but had to accomplish what he pleased (Isaiah 55:11); it had to become flesh so he could dwell among us and be our savior.

John 1:29  The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

 Hebrews 10:4-13 tells us that the Old Testament animal sacrifices could not take away sin. Therefore, God provided Jesus a body, the sacrifice of which could take away sin, and thus he became the sacrificial lamb provided by God that takes away the sin of the world!

I have nothing against Church plays that tell the Christmas story, they just need “More Power!” They need the power of a heavenly perspective that reveals a supernatural, almighty, self-existent, eternal God who became flesh and dwelt among us as life and light that darkness cannot overcome. 

I hope you will read the stories in Mathew and Luke this Christmas season. But I hope you will also read the other Christmas story in John and ask the Lord for heaven’s perspective and a fresh revelation of the power of His salvation.

Robert Peck lives in Spokane Valley, Washington. As a Christian man who finds himself compelled to take a stand in the civil arena, Bob has served in political campaigns, promoted Constitutional education in the community, provides technical assistance to various Constitutional causes, and also manages to write the occasional article. He is an elder in ZChurch and a tech leader on the ZTeam.